1
25
30
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Weston, Fred
F Weston
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weston, F
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Fred Weston DFC (1916 - 2012, 126909 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 and 620 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Catherine Millington and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
"Fred" by Sylvia White (his cousin)
Description
An account of the resource
Fred's life story from early days sneaking downstairs to drink the dregs at his parent's public house, playing rugby and studying hard, becoming an accountant, learning to be an accurate rifle shooter then joining the RAF as a an air gunner. He survived a tour of 30 operations. After the war he studied for a B.Sc in Forestry and worked for the Forestry Commission.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Sylvia White
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Runcorn
England--Widnes
Wales--Penrhos
England--Cambridge
Germany--Hamburg
Netherlands--Arnhem
Wales--Bangor
England--Winchester
England--Helmsley
England--Hambleton (North Yorkshire)
England--Pickering
Germany
Netherlands
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cheshire
England--Hampshire
England--Yorkshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four printed sheets and one handwritten note
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWestonF126909-161113-060001, MWestonF126909-161113-060002, MWestonF126909-161113-060003, MWestonF126909-161113-060004,
MWestonF126909-161113-060005
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
101 Squadron
620 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
Blenheim
Bombing and Gunnery School
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
faith
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Gneisenau
killed in action
mid-air collision
military ethos
RAF Penrhos
Scharnhorst
Stirling
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1519/30385/PSladdenD1601-Inventory.1.pdf
152e3e88081505b69b7208ab407f40bc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
35mm slides by Noel Chaffey 620 Squadron of WW2 1943/6 and 1954 onward
Description
An account of the resource
Typed and handwritten list of slides captions.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
N Chaffey
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two page document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSladdenD1601-Inventory
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Bishop's Stortford
England--Colchester
Norway
Norway--Gardermoen
England--London
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
England--Cambridgeshire
England--St. Ives (Cambridgeshire)
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Herefordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1954
1945
1946
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
120 Squadron
620 Squadron
aircrew
B-25
B-26
Halifax
Horsa
Stirling
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
620 Squadron
LK127 20 Sept. 1944
Crashed near Heteren.
* F/O A R Scanlon Captain.
P. F/O E B Dane Navigator.
* F/S J R Lamont Air Bomber.
P. F/S W J Murray Flight Engineer.
* W/O E J McGilvray Wireless/Op. (RAAF)
* Sgt. J W Marshall Air Gunner
* Died – P. Prisoner of war.
LK548 20 Sept. 1944
Crashed at Nistelrode (Flak)
* P/O M McHugh Captain.
F/S J G Hulme Navigator.
F/S N Gascoyne Air Bomber.
P. Sgt. D P Evans Flight Engineer.
* F/S A E Bradshaw Wireless/Op.
* Sgt. T Vickers Air Gunner
* Died – P. Prisoner of war.
LJ830 21 Sept. 1944
Crashed 3 miles W of Arnhem
P. F/O H M McLeod Captain.
P. F/O R Newton Navigator.
P. F/O H Bate Air Bomber.
P. Sgt T Haig Flight Engineer.
P. F/O C C King Wireless/Op. (RAAF)
* F/O J R Thomas Air Gunner
* Died – P. Prisoner of war.
LJ946 21 Sept. 1944
Crashed?
P. F/O J C L Carey Captain.
P. F/L D N Cook Navigator.
P. F/S C M Hinder Air Bomber.
P. Sgt C N Bucleman Flight Engineer.
P. F/S F Andrews Wireless/Op.
P. F/S H S Pritchard Air Gunner
P. Prisoner of war.
LJ873 23 Sept. 1944
Crashed near Oss
W/C D H Lee Captain.
F/S E Pratt Navigator.
F/S J P Baker Air Bomber.
F/S D Naylor Flight Engineer.
F/S A D Hurd Wireless/Op.
F/S M Hennessey Air Gunner
Crash land all safe.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron crews
Description
An account of the resource
Lists 5 crews from 620 Squadron that all crashed with several crewmen killed and others prisoners of war. All dated 20, 21 and 23 September 1944.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MSladdenD25115087-160623-26
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
France
France--Normandy
Germany
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09-20
1944-09-21
1944-09-23
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
crash
killed in action
prisoner of war
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1560/35630/BMillingtonRWestonFv1.2.pdf
8f0a70969cd59c55fef62f5a0d5a383d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Weston, Fred
F Weston
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weston, F
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Fred Weston DFC (1916 - 2012, 126909 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 and 620 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Catherine Millington and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Gunner
Based around the WWII service of Fred Weston DFC RAFVR
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Fred. In addition it includes histories of aircraft and squadrons he served in, Details are included of airfields he served at. Additionally there are biographies of various servicemen associated with Fred's squadrons and service.
At the end there is a biography of the officer in charge of Arnhem, Lt-Gen Sir Frederick Browning and his wife Daphne du Maurier.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Roger Millington
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridge
England--Letchworth
Wales--Bridgend
Wales--Penrhos
Egypt--Heliopolis (Extinct city)
Singapore
France--Cherbourg
Netherlands--Eindhoven
France--Brest
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Dunkerque
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
France--Brest
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Berlin
Italy--Turin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Quiberon
France--Boulogne-Billancourt
Germany--Essen
France--Le Creusot
Germany--Leverkusen
France--Caen
Netherlands--Arnhem
Norway
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Belgium--Brussels
England--Rochester (Kent)
Northern Ireland--Belfast
England--Longbridge
France--Arras
England--Darlington
Italy--Genoa
England--Longbridge
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Nuremberg
Italy--Sicily
France--Normandy
Netherlands--Arnhem
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Wales--Pwllheli
England--Yorkshire
England--Leicester
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
Scotland--Edinburgh
England--Rochford
England--London
England--Cornwall (County)
Scotland--Ayr
England--Friston (East Sussex)
England--Gravesend (Kent)
England--West Malling
England--Hailsham
England--Yelverton (Devon)
England--Bentwaters NATO Air Base
England--Great Dunmow
England--Heacham
England--Weybridge
Wales--Hawarden
England--Blackpool
England--Old Sarum (Extinct city)
England--Kent
England--Folkestone
England--Hambleton (North Yorkshire)
England--York
Scotland--Scottish Borders
England--Cambridge
England--Thurleigh
England--Darlington
England--Hitchin
England--Lancashire
Italy
France
Egypt
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
Great Britain
Yemen (Republic)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Durham (County)
England--Sussex
England--Essex
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Surrey
England--Wiltshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Swindon (Wiltshire)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
British Army
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Free French Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
85 sheets
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BMillingtonRWestonFv1
1 Group
100 Group
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
105 Squadron
114 Squadron
139 Squadron
141 Squadron
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
162 Squadron
1657 HCU
1665 HCU
18 Squadron
180 Squadron
2 Group
208 Squadron
214 Squadron
239 Squadron
3 Group
301 Squadron
304 Squadron
342 Squadron
6 Group
6 Squadron
620 Squadron
7 Squadron
75 Squadron
8 Group
9 Squadron
90 Squadron
97 Squadron
99 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
B-24
B-25
bale out
Beaufighter
Blenheim
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
Boston
Caterpillar Club
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
ditching
evading
final resting place
Gee
Gneisenau
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Horsa
Hurricane
Ju 87
killed in action
Lancaster
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Meteor
mid-air collision
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
P-51
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
propaganda
radar
RAF Bicester
RAF Biggin Hill
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bottesford
RAF Bourn
RAF Bradwell Bay
RAF Bramcote
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Chipping Warden
RAF Coltishall
RAF Drem
RAF Driffield
RAF Duxford
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Evanton
RAF Fairford
RAF Finningley
RAF Great Massingham
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Harwell
RAF Hendon
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Honington
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Horsham St Faith
RAF Kenley
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Leconfield
RAF Leuchars
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Little Snoring
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Manston
RAF Marham
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Newmarket
RAF Newton
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Oakington
RAF Penrhos
RAF Pershore
RAF Ridgewell
RAF Shepherds Grove
RAF Sleap
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tangmere
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tilstock
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Waterbeach
RAF West Raynham
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Wratting Common
RAF Wyton
Resistance
Scharnhorst
Special Operations Executive
Spitfire
Stirling
target indicator
Tiger force
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aircrew photographs
Strip of four slides
Description
An account of the resource
Two versions of the same strip (b/w and colour) with enlargements of all slides.
Slide 1 - captioned 'Re-visit Easton Lodge N Chaffey, Ben Crocker,Frank Pearman, Before Brian - '. Three men in civilian clothes in garden of a large house. Man on left wears blazer and is sitting on a stone table, the others are standing. There is no enlargement of this slide.
Slide 2 - captioned 'GR photo of rear gunners 620 Squadron, Ginger Weston in charge'. Twenty-four aircrew wearing battledress and side caps (apart form one man centre front row - peaked cap) sitting and standing in three rows in front of a four engine bomber.
Slide 3 - captioned 'GR photo taken Fairford of "A" and "B" Flights of 620 Squadron on wireless operator,. S/LDR Jones in charge'. Twenty-nine aircrew wearing battledress and side caps apart from one centre of middle row. Sitting and standing in three rows in front of a Stirling.
Slide 4 - captioned 'GR photo taken Fairford of "A" and "B" flight (pilots) c.o. (Nav) Bertie Wallace in charge'. Seventeen aircrew all earing battledress and side caps sitting and standing in two rows in front of a Stirling.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two strips of four slides and three b/w enlargements
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSladdenD16010004, PSladdenD16020004, PSladdenD16040014, PSladdenD16040015, PSladdenD16040016
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
pilot
RAF Fairford
Stirling
wireless operator
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Watson, Joan
J Watson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Watson, JB
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joan Watson.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Airmen and Stirling
Description
An account of the resource
A large group of airmen arranged in four rows in front of a Stirling. Information supplied with collection:
Black and white landscape photograph of 620 squadron at Fairford taken in front of a Short Stirling Mk4, K Watson is in the front row 8th from the left.
Submitted with caption; “620 Sqdn Fairford June 1944. KW front, 8 from left”
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWatsonJB1502
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
620 Squadron
aircrew
ground crew
RAF Fairford
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/315/15275/LPayneAJ1315369v1.1.pdf
90d2332a7f81b01d7511af5b65d85690
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Payne, Alan
Alan John Payne
Alan J Payne
Alan Payne
A J Payne
A Payne
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Alan John Payne DFC (1315369 and 173299 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He completed 18 operations as a bomb aimer with 630 Squadron.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Payne, AJ
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alan Payne’s South African Air Force observers or air gunners log book
Description
An account of the resource
South African Air Force observers or air gunners log book for Alan John Payne, navigator, covering the period from 7 November 1942 to 8 August 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, instructor duties and post war squadron duties. He was stationed at RAF Torquay, RAF Eastbourne, RAF Brighton, RAF West Kirby, Queenstown, Port Alfred, RAF Dumfries, RAF Turweston, RAF Silverstone, RAF Winthorpe, RAF East Kirkby, RAF Husbands Bosworth, RAF Llandwrog, RAF Saltby, RAF Matching, RAF Great Dunmow, RAF Aqir and RAF Cairo West. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Oxford, Botha, Wellington, Lancaster, Halifax and C-47. He flew a total of 18 night operations with 630 Squadron. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer Probert and Flight Lieutenant McDonald. Targets were, Berlin, Stettin, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Stuttgart, Clermont-Ferrand, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Tours, Maille, Amiens and Kiel Bay. This was followed by glider, troop carrying duties and Prisoner of War transport with 620 Squadron. The log book also contains a menu from 10 February 1943 with signatures of those on the course.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Cara Walmsley
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LPayneAJ1315369v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
France
Germany
Great Britain
Middle East--Palestine
Poland
South Africa
Atlantic Ocean--Kiel Bay
Egypt--Cairo
England--Devon
England--Essex
England--Leicestershire
England--Merseyside
France--Amiens
France--Clermont-Ferrand
France--Tours
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Middle East--Palestine
Poland--Szczecin
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
South Africa--Queenstown
Wales--Gwynedd
France--Maillé
North Africa
England--Sussex
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1943-12-02
1943-12-03
1943-12-04
1943-12-29
1943-12-30
1944-01-01
1944-01-02
1944-01-05
1944-01-06
1944-01-14
1944-01-15
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-01-27
1944-01-28
1944-01-30
1944-01-31
1944-02-15
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-21
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-03-01
1944-03-02
1944-03-10
1944-03-11
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-21
1944-05-22
1661 HCU
1665 HCU
17 OTU
620 Squadron
630 Squadron
85 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Botha
C-47
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 109
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
prisoner of war
RAF Aqir
RAF Dumfries
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Saltby
RAF Silverstone
RAF Torquay
RAF Turweston
RAF Winthorpe
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/262/23789/LGouldAG1605203v1.1.pdf
9dd91522300ed555ad4b32db2caaac7c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gould, Allen
Allen G Gould
Allen Gould
A G Gould
A Gould
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-seven items. Concerns Allen Geoffrey Gould (b. 1923, 1605203 Royal Air Force). He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and the Special Operations Executive. Collection consists of an oral history interview, his log book, flight engineer course notebooks, pilot's and engineers handling notes, mention in London Gazette, official documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allen Geoffrey Gould and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gould, AG
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Sgt. Allen G. Gould – 1605203, was born in 1923, after leaving school in Bournemouth at 13, he worked for the Danish Bacon Company until being called up in 1943. Choosing to join the RAF, initially wanting to be a Navigator, he ended up as a Flight Engineer, flying in the Short Stirling Mk. I, II, III and IV variants. Training at RAF St. Alban, then the Heavy Conversion Unit. Allen joined No. 620 Squadron, flying from various bases, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Leicester East and then RAF Fairford. The roles for this squadron were not just bombing missions but Minelaying, Supply drops, Glider Towing and Paratrooper drops. He took part in D-Day, dropping paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Division over Caen, France on the night of 5th June 1944, returning on the 6th towing a glider of heavy equipment. He was also a part of Market Garden, towing a glider on 17th September 1944 and returning on the 19th and 21st on supply drops. There were also numerous drops on behalf of Special Operations Executive (SOE) as well as Special Air Service (SAS) dropping supplies and paratroopers.
Andrew St.Denis
Allen Gould was born on 16 June 1923 in Bournemouth. He left school at fourteen and worked for the Danish Bacon company until he was called up. His father having spent four years in the trenches, in WW1, advised him against joining the Army, so he volunteered for the Royal Air Force.
He joined the RAF on in October 1942 and following basic training he attended the first-ever direct entry, Flight Engineers’ Course at RAF St Athan.
On completion of flight engineering training, he joined up with his crew on 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Stradishall, then moved with them onto 620 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh and later RAF Leicester East.
The squadron later relocated to RAF Fairford where they trained to tow gliders. He was billeted with 12 others in a Nissan hut, conveniently close to a trout stream. They often caught trout, away from the watchful eye of the bailiff and cooked them in a tin on the large coke stove that heated the hut. The illicit bounty was a most welcome supplement to the barely adequate daily rations they received.
Direct out of training with no aircraft experience he had to earn the trust of his crew who up until then had only come across experienced flight engineers. On only his second operational trip and flying with an inexperienced crew, they arrived late over Ludwigshafen, where they found themselves alone and under concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft was being peppered and was full of holes while the pilot was executing extreme manoeuvres trying to avoid further damage. A fuel tank was hit and Allen had to work hard to ensure the engines received sufficient fuel to keep running. At the same time he had to make sure there would be enough fuel remaining to get back to the south coast of England for an emergency landing. As the aircraft approached the runway, the airfield lights went out and the pilot announced he was going to do another circuit. Allen told him, bluntly, he couldn’t as he didn’t have enough fuel, so the pilot made a steep turn and conducted a blind landing with no fuel to spare. Allen bonded well with his crew and in their free time they would often all go out to the pub together.
Throughout his tour his squadron undertook a variety of roles, much of was it in support of the Special Operations Executive personnel, operating covertly in occupied Europe. They also trained to tow gliders and dropped parachuting troops on D Day.
Allen completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and he totalled over 460 flying hours on Stirlings. PGouldAG1610.2.jpg (1600×2310) (lincoln.ac.uk)
For his services to 620 Squadron, he was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for distinguished service. MGouldAG1605203-160708-13.2.pdf (lincoln.ac.uk)
Post war, he married his wife, Norma, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. PGouldAG1601.2.jpg (1600×2412) (lincoln.ac.uk)
Allen was discharged in October 1946 having attained the rank of Warrant Officer. PGouldAG1604.1.jpg (1600×2330) (lincoln.ac.uk)
He returned to the Danish Bacon company where he worked for another 40 years.
Chriss Cann
October 1942: Volunteered for the RAF
January 1943 - July 1943: RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer Training
July 1943 - September 1943: RAF Stradishall, 1657 HCU, flying Stirling aircraft
September 1943 - December 1943: RAF Chedburgh, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
January 1944 - March 1944: RAF Leicester East, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
March 1944 - April 1945: RAF Fairford,620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
8 October 1946: Released from service having attained the rank of Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Allen Gould’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for A G Gould, flight engineer, covering the period from 30 July 1943 to 13 April 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Stradishall, RAF Chedburgh and RAF Leicester East. Aircraft flown in was Stirling. He flew a total of 29 operations with 620 squadron, 24 Night and 5 daylight. Listed targets were Borkum, Mannheim, Caen, and Arnhem. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Murray. The other operations were described as needed and involved the Special Air Service or the Special operations Executive, operation Tonga and operations to Norway and Sweden.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
MIke Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGouldAG1605203v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Leicestershire
England--Suffolk
France--Caen
Germany--Borkum
Germany--Mannheim
Netherlands--Arnhem
France
Germany
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1943-09-21
1943-09-27
1943-10-21
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1944-02-04
1944-02-05
1944-02-06
1944-02-11
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-18
1944-06-19
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-31
1944-09-06
1944-09-07
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-17
1944-09-19
1944-09-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-27
1944-11-28
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-02-26
1945-02-27
1945-03-24
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
1657 HCU
620 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Leicester East
RAF Stradishall
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1560/35609/PWestonF1607.2.jpg
3cfc22d3e1f92d907d68fc9fdb3f1966
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Weston, Fred
F Weston
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weston, F
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Fred Weston DFC (1916 - 2012, 126909 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 and 620 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Catherine Millington and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Four Stirlings in Flight
Description
An account of the resource
An air to air photograph of four Stirlings. Handwritten in a corner is 'Approaching Arnhem Sept 20th 1944'.
Information supplied with the collection states that Fred is rear gunner in the lead aircraft.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-09-20
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWestonF1607
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09-20
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42429/PGosneyG1813.1.jpg
4e39cd552f3d64fc5118a0f566ace481
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42429/PGosneyG1814.1.jpg
8a8ff47316d2f49c14e45cd42ccfb950
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42429/PGosneyG1821.2.jpg
e93d7d3ab4e0f094639c560911e3a441
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gosney, Geoffrey
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Gosney (b. 1919, 568331, 54247 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, service documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 426, 462 and 428 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Susan Hassell and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gosney, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Group of flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
27 flight engineers in half caps and desert uniform arranged in rows around a wooden barrel which is marked 'Aqir XXX'. Four men crouch either side of the barrel with one row of eight men sat behind and two rows of eight and six men standing in the rear. There is a utility post and single storey buildings behind with domed corrugated roofs. Annotated on the reverse 'outside the section 620 flight engineers Aqir July 21st 1946'.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-07-21
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Israel
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PGosneyG1813, PGosneyG1814, PGosneyG1821
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-07-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
620 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
RAF Aqir
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/262/28734/PGouldAG1608.2.jpg
dcaaf40872981e1b6967df188e782ecd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/262/28734/PGouldAG1609.2.jpg
90a54a2d92045f44692f90d2d34f97ff
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gould, Allen
Allen G Gould
Allen Gould
A G Gould
A Gould
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-seven items. Concerns Allen Geoffrey Gould (b. 1923, 1605203 Royal Air Force). He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and the Special Operations Executive. Collection consists of an oral history interview, his log book, flight engineer course notebooks, pilot's and engineers handling notes, mention in London Gazette, official documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allen Geoffrey Gould and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gould, AG
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Sgt. Allen G. Gould – 1605203, was born in 1923, after leaving school in Bournemouth at 13, he worked for the Danish Bacon Company until being called up in 1943. Choosing to join the RAF, initially wanting to be a Navigator, he ended up as a Flight Engineer, flying in the Short Stirling Mk. I, II, III and IV variants. Training at RAF St. Alban, then the Heavy Conversion Unit. Allen joined No. 620 Squadron, flying from various bases, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Leicester East and then RAF Fairford. The roles for this squadron were not just bombing missions but Minelaying, Supply drops, Glider Towing and Paratrooper drops. He took part in D-Day, dropping paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Division over Caen, France on the night of 5th June 1944, returning on the 6th towing a glider of heavy equipment. He was also a part of Market Garden, towing a glider on 17th September 1944 and returning on the 19th and 21st on supply drops. There were also numerous drops on behalf of Special Operations Executive (SOE) as well as Special Air Service (SAS) dropping supplies and paratroopers.
Andrew St.Denis
Allen Gould was born on 16 June 1923 in Bournemouth. He left school at fourteen and worked for the Danish Bacon company until he was called up. His father having spent four years in the trenches, in WW1, advised him against joining the Army, so he volunteered for the Royal Air Force.
He joined the RAF on in October 1942 and following basic training he attended the first-ever direct entry, Flight Engineers’ Course at RAF St Athan.
On completion of flight engineering training, he joined up with his crew on 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Stradishall, then moved with them onto 620 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh and later RAF Leicester East.
The squadron later relocated to RAF Fairford where they trained to tow gliders. He was billeted with 12 others in a Nissan hut, conveniently close to a trout stream. They often caught trout, away from the watchful eye of the bailiff and cooked them in a tin on the large coke stove that heated the hut. The illicit bounty was a most welcome supplement to the barely adequate daily rations they received.
Direct out of training with no aircraft experience he had to earn the trust of his crew who up until then had only come across experienced flight engineers. On only his second operational trip and flying with an inexperienced crew, they arrived late over Ludwigshafen, where they found themselves alone and under concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft was being peppered and was full of holes while the pilot was executing extreme manoeuvres trying to avoid further damage. A fuel tank was hit and Allen had to work hard to ensure the engines received sufficient fuel to keep running. At the same time he had to make sure there would be enough fuel remaining to get back to the south coast of England for an emergency landing. As the aircraft approached the runway, the airfield lights went out and the pilot announced he was going to do another circuit. Allen told him, bluntly, he couldn’t as he didn’t have enough fuel, so the pilot made a steep turn and conducted a blind landing with no fuel to spare. Allen bonded well with his crew and in their free time they would often all go out to the pub together.
Throughout his tour his squadron undertook a variety of roles, much of was it in support of the Special Operations Executive personnel, operating covertly in occupied Europe. They also trained to tow gliders and dropped parachuting troops on D Day.
Allen completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and he totalled over 460 flying hours on Stirlings. PGouldAG1610.2.jpg (1600×2310) (lincoln.ac.uk)
For his services to 620 Squadron, he was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for distinguished service. MGouldAG1605203-160708-13.2.pdf (lincoln.ac.uk)
Post war, he married his wife, Norma, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. PGouldAG1601.2.jpg (1600×2412) (lincoln.ac.uk)
Allen was discharged in October 1946 having attained the rank of Warrant Officer. PGouldAG1604.1.jpg (1600×2330) (lincoln.ac.uk)
He returned to the Danish Bacon company where he worked for another 40 years.
Chriss Cann
October 1942: Volunteered for the RAF
January 1943 - July 1943: RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer Training
July 1943 - September 1943: RAF Stradishall, 1657 HCU, flying Stirling aircraft
September 1943 - December 1943: RAF Chedburgh, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
January 1944 - March 1944: RAF Leicester East, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
March 1944 - April 1945: RAF Fairford,620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
8 October 1946: Released from service having attained the rank of Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Dublin Core
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Title
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Groups of airmen in front of a Stirling
Description
An account of the resource
In the centre a group of five airmen stand talking in a group. Another three stand off to the left looking on. On the far right in the distance another two men. One the left part of an aircraft. In the centre a Stirling with other Stirlings lined up on the taxiway behind. On the reverse 'Before Arnhem resupply Thursday 21/9/44'.
Date
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1944-09-21
Format
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One b/w photograph
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PGouldAG1608, PGouldAG1609
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
Netherlands--Arnhem
Temporal Coverage
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1944-09-21
Publisher
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Flight
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
aircrew
Stirling
taxiway
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/262/3410/AGouldAG160708.2.mp3
73437c87dfac06a7e6749cfe5ed84141
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Gould, Allen
Allen G Gould
Allen Gould
A G Gould
A Gould
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-seven items. Concerns Allen Geoffrey Gould (b. 1923, 1605203 Royal Air Force). He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and the Special Operations Executive. Collection consists of an oral history interview, his log book, flight engineer course notebooks, pilot's and engineers handling notes, mention in London Gazette, official documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allen Geoffrey Gould and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Gould, AG
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Sgt. Allen G. Gould – 1605203, was born in 1923, after leaving school in Bournemouth at 13, he worked for the Danish Bacon Company until being called up in 1943. Choosing to join the RAF, initially wanting to be a Navigator, he ended up as a Flight Engineer, flying in the Short Stirling Mk. I, II, III and IV variants. Training at RAF St. Alban, then the Heavy Conversion Unit. Allen joined No. 620 Squadron, flying from various bases, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Leicester East and then RAF Fairford. The roles for this squadron were not just bombing missions but Minelaying, Supply drops, Glider Towing and Paratrooper drops. He took part in D-Day, dropping paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Division over Caen, France on the night of 5th June 1944, returning on the 6th towing a glider of heavy equipment. He was also a part of Market Garden, towing a glider on 17th September 1944 and returning on the 19th and 21st on supply drops. There were also numerous drops on behalf of Special Operations Executive (SOE) as well as Special Air Service (SAS) dropping supplies and paratroopers.
Andrew St.Denis
Allen Gould was born on 16 June 1923 in Bournemouth. He left school at fourteen and worked for the Danish Bacon company until he was called up. His father having spent four years in the trenches, in WW1, advised him against joining the Army, so he volunteered for the Royal Air Force.
He joined the RAF on in October 1942 and following basic training he attended the first-ever direct entry, Flight Engineers’ Course at RAF St Athan.
On completion of flight engineering training, he joined up with his crew on 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Stradishall, then moved with them onto 620 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh and later RAF Leicester East.
The squadron later relocated to RAF Fairford where they trained to tow gliders. He was billeted with 12 others in a Nissan hut, conveniently close to a trout stream. They often caught trout, away from the watchful eye of the bailiff and cooked them in a tin on the large coke stove that heated the hut. The illicit bounty was a most welcome supplement to the barely adequate daily rations they received.
Direct out of training with no aircraft experience he had to earn the trust of his crew who up until then had only come across experienced flight engineers. On only his second operational trip and flying with an inexperienced crew, they arrived late over Ludwigshafen, where they found themselves alone and under concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft was being peppered and was full of holes while the pilot was executing extreme manoeuvres trying to avoid further damage. A fuel tank was hit and Allen had to work hard to ensure the engines received sufficient fuel to keep running. At the same time he had to make sure there would be enough fuel remaining to get back to the south coast of England for an emergency landing. As the aircraft approached the runway, the airfield lights went out and the pilot announced he was going to do another circuit. Allen told him, bluntly, he couldn’t as he didn’t have enough fuel, so the pilot made a steep turn and conducted a blind landing with no fuel to spare. Allen bonded well with his crew and in their free time they would often all go out to the pub together.
Throughout his tour his squadron undertook a variety of roles, much of was it in support of the Special Operations Executive personnel, operating covertly in occupied Europe. They also trained to tow gliders and dropped parachuting troops on D Day.
Allen completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and he totalled over 460 flying hours on Stirlings. PGouldAG1610.2.jpg (1600×2310) (lincoln.ac.uk)
For his services to 620 Squadron, he was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for distinguished service. MGouldAG1605203-160708-13.2.pdf (lincoln.ac.uk)
Post war, he married his wife, Norma, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. PGouldAG1601.2.jpg (1600×2412) (lincoln.ac.uk)
Allen was discharged in October 1946 having attained the rank of Warrant Officer. PGouldAG1604.1.jpg (1600×2330) (lincoln.ac.uk)
He returned to the Danish Bacon company where he worked for another 40 years.
Chriss Cann
October 1942: Volunteered for the RAF
January 1943 - July 1943: RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer Training
July 1943 - September 1943: RAF Stradishall, 1657 HCU, flying Stirling aircraft
September 1943 - December 1943: RAF Chedburgh, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
January 1944 - March 1944: RAF Leicester East, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
March 1944 - April 1945: RAF Fairford,620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
8 October 1946: Released from service having attained the rank of Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the eighth of July two thousand and sixteen, we’re in Oxford talking to Allen Gould about his experiences flying Stirling’s in the war. Allen what are your first recollections of life with the family?
AG: Well I went to school at Winton and Moordown council boys school in Bournemouth, erm, left when I was fourteen, which irritated my father, ‘cos he hadn’t got the money to pay for me to go to grammar school, there were only two seats allocated to our school, after the erm, eleven plus, and, erm, everybody there failed except for the doctor’s son and the councillor’s son, who both got a grammar school seat, which I would have loved but there you are, because in those days that was the only way you could get to university, grammar school first and then go, [pause] and I left school at fourteen, got a job with the Danish Bacon Company, [pause] a shit house firm right from the start, I was there for, getting on for forty years, after the war I came back there and erm, and then I, my nerves got back to normal when I was, after I had been away from the air force for, ten or twelve years, and erm, I got another job, which I was quite pleased about but they wouldn’t let me take my pension with me which my new firm offered to do and treat it as though I had been there all that time, but they didn’t, they made me take the whole thing out, not the part they paid in, all I’d been paid in, they made me take that out as part of my last week’s wages there, ‘cos the income tax that week would frighten anybody, [laughs] and that was it, and I was there until I got called up, with erm, three other fellas, I was the only one that came back without any damage, two of ‘em got killed, one of them finished up with one leg about three inches shorter than the other, I was the only one that was alright when I came back, and then went on the road and did commercial travelling, up and down the country, and I did that with a new firm I joined, Patrick Grainger and Hutleys, nice firm based in Fordingbridge, [pause] so I was up at half past five in the morning going to work, driving up to Fordingbridge, and picking up one of my drivers along the way [pause]
CB: Ok, so, you started with the bacon company, how did you come to join the RAF?
AG: Well, I rather fancied it you know I mean when I was called up my father had done four years in the trenches and he said ‘no way are you going into the army, my cocker’ so I said ‘ Oh alright I’ll take your advice on that’, so I put my name down for the RAF, and when it came to a choice between this and that and I thought flying, oh wow, let’s have a go at that.So, er, I, finished up in Blackpool getting my uniform and one thing and another, and then erm, posted from there down to St Athans, on this first directory, first direct [emphasis], flight engineers course, because they were losing so many flight engineers who’d taken a long time, a really [emphasis] long time in training and they couldn’t afford it any longer. So we were pushed through, erm, six months and I was out on the squadron, at erm, Stradishall and then in the finish we wound up at Fairford and we were there for years, [pause] the only other aerodrome we flew from during that time was from Hurn, just outside Bournemouth
CB: So, you did your training at St Athan, what was the training that you did there?
AG: Direct entry flight engineer
CB: Yeh, but, what was involved in that?
AG: Well, really all it boiled down to was, looking at pictures of engines and exploring the airframes, and one thing and another, so when we were flying I was always on the move, bouncing up and down on me toes for up to twelve hours if we went down as far as Switzerland, ‘cos flight engineers don’t have a seat [pause]
CB: Ok, so on the training though there’s a lot of aspects of the aircraft?
AG: Yeh
CB: So, what aspects were you dealing with, you talked briefly about airframe, but what else were they focussing on?
AG: Oh, erm, the engines and erm, more particularly the amount of fuel they would be using and heights we were going to, how it objected on the fuel take up and er all that sort of thing
CB: So, on an aircraft the size of the four engine planes, how many tanks would there be on those planes?
AG: Err
CB: Fuel tanks
AG: Numbers two and four, and one, two and three in each wing
CB: So, what was the flight engineer’s job in that?
AG: Well. I had to control that, when the pilot was fiddling about with the controls, I was watching the dials and making sure that everything was as it should be, erm, we only got into real trouble on one flight, erm, when we were still sort of, an inexperienced crew, we had to, erm, join bombers going to Mannheim Ludwigshafen and we were bombing the Ludwigshafen, and being a sprog crew, ‘cos we got there ten minutes late all the others had gone through, so we were going over on our own and we were really getting bashed. Our pilot was doing mad dives and turns to get us out of it, the only thing that we lost was the number four tank in the starboard wing, so I had to run all the engines off that to make sure we used everything we possibly could, and, we did, just save enough to get back to an emergency aerodrome on the south coast, whose name I’ve forgotten to be honest, and we were just going into land and they turned all the lights off, and the pilot said ‘I’ll do another circuit’ and I said ‘ you can’t, you haven’t got enough fuel’, I’m afraid that became a funny word to them because every time he saw me in future he said ‘We can’t, we haven’t got enough fuel!’. So, he did a sweep to the left up on one wing and came straight back in and landed, lights or no lights, he was going in, and we did, I said to the bomb aimer, who was also the second pilot afterwards ‘how did you, er, cope with that ‘? He said ‘well’, he said ‘you know when the undercarriage is down you get a green light’ he said, ‘and if it’s not you get a red light’ So, he said ‘we were as bouncing down the runway and it was going red, green, red, green, red, green, red, green’, [laughs] I said, ‘Oh, thanks very much, cheered me up no end that has’
CB: But, it stayed down?
AG: Oh, yeh, we got down no bother, we just got enough. The pilot came out the following morning and said ‘Look, if we’ve got any fuel left, I’m gonna kick your arse all round this aerodrome’, so I dipped every tank, he and I walked across the wings and I dipped every tank, and it was just enough left in one of them to damp the end of the dipstick, so he shut up after that [laughs]
CB: So, it was reassuring that the gauges were accurate
AG: Well, I wondered if that was what finished up with that MiD of mine, ‘cos they must have made a note of it because we had to abandon the aircraft there and get a lift back to our aerodrome at Fairford, we just left them on this, at this other aerodrome, whose name I don’t remember unfortunately
CB: So, MiD is, mentioned in despatches?
AG: Yeh
CB: Right
AG: Yeh, so somebody must have made a note of it, I expect my pilot went back and said, ‘he was right you know, we didn’t have any fuel’ [laughs]
CB: Saved the crew, effectively
AG: Well, there you are, yeh, so, perhaps that’s what I got it for
CB: So, the reason I asked you about the training is, because clearly, it was focussed on, what in those days was state of the art aircraft, the first of the heavy bombers was the Stirling,
AG: Hmm
CB: but it was different from the other bombers, in that it had electrical circuits for so many things where others would use hydraulics
AG: Oh, yes
CB: In your basic training, what emphasis, was there, on hydraulics and electrics, in the training at St Athan?
AG: Well, skimming over it, as it was a direct entry course they didn’t waste a lot of time, I’ll tell you
CB: How did you come to do flight engineering, because you, had you, when you were working for the bacon company, had you been involved in technical matters then?
AG: No, no
CB: So, how did you come to be selected to train as a flight engineer?
AG: Well, I think they wanted when we were in Blackpool, they wanted flight engineers more than anything because they’d lost so many, and erm, I was automatically put onto that, you know, I’d erm, I think I put my name down to start with for navigation, but never got to that [pause]
CB: So, you finished the training after six months and how did you feel at the end of the training about your knowledge of engineering and aircraft?
AG: Well, I thought at the time that it wasn’t up to scratch, really, I mean, when I thought of the work that previous flight engineers had, had to do, different courses and out on a squadron for six months and then come back and do another course, I mean what we, what they went through to get us out was quick and easy, you know, and that sort of thing.
CB: So, the process for crewing up aircrew, was that at the operational training unit the crew got together, the flight engineer didn’t join until the heavy conversion unit?
AG: That’s right
CB: So, what was the crew like when you, how did you come to join an existing crew that had been on Wellingtons?
AG: Well, they were a bit iffy about having a direct entry flight engineer
CB: Were they?
AG: Because they were told I was one, and they’d never heard of anybody like that, you know, and they thought they were going to get somebody who had been out working on aircraft, on the flights, on the aerodromes, but they didn’t they got me and er, until this second trip, when I got away with this fuel business, after that we were, they relied on me, really, and er, were extremely friendly
CB: As a crew, what were the ranks, was the pilot always commissioned or was he only
AG: Oh yes
CB: Commissioned later?
AG: Yes, the pilot and the navigator and the rear gunner were all commissioned, [pause] and the wireless operator was a sergeant like me when we started flying together [pause]
CB: Ok, so you joined at the heavy conversion unit, where was that?
AG: Stradishall
CB: Right
AG: I do remember that name
CB: And how long where you at Stradishall?
AG: Oh, only about a week [pause], then we went up to Fairford and started ops
CB: Right
AG: Our first one was erm, minelaying, off erm, [unclear] Byrum [?] I think I got the name right, other side of Denmark, going down towards where the Germans were
CB: The far side of Denmark?
AG: Yeh
CB: The Swedish side?
AG: That’s right, yeh, yes, I remember coming back from there, we were flying along and you could see all the Swedish coast, all lit up, the pears, the piers and everything, all the lights
CB: Didn’t do you any good from a silhouette point of view, did it?
AG: No, it didn’t, no that’s true, yes, the only other place, that er, we were worried about the silhouette was erm, we did erm, three or four trips to Norway, supplying free Norwegians, who were up in the mountains, we had to look out for them and then drop stuff to them, funny enough, I see in the paper, that it was only last year, that they found some of the stuff that had been dropped for these people, that they never found and it was still in the snow, but when we were flying over there, we only went up there on a really full moon at night, and we could see our shadow going across the snow, well if anybody had been up, all they had to do was to look at the, moon and our shadow and they knew exactly where we were, and of course the only thing we had to worry about there, was the right up in the north of Denmark was this big German fighter unit, they used to cover the North Sea and out in the Atlantic and all over
CB: So, you were supplying the SOE, the Special Operations Executive in that case, weren’t you?
AG: Yeh, that’s right
CB: So, are you saying that the squadron, 620, had a variety of roles?
AG: Oh yes, we erm, D Day, we dropped parachutes on Caen bridge, and then we had to go back and come over again in the afternoon with gliders, with heavier equipment, down in the same place
CB: So, on gliders, where did you train for towing gliders?
AG: At Fairford
CB: What was the main activity at Fairford then?
AG: Well, the main activity there, was putting us out on raids or supply trips, which went on for years
CB: Rather than bombing you were supplying agents
AG: Yeh, oh yeh
CB: Right
AG: We did bombing raids as well, because I remember we, that, our troops on the ground had got this, surrounded this wood which had got the Germans in it, and we had to go over and bomb these German troops in this wood, and we had a plane going over there about every ten minutes so they wouldn’t get any rest or peace and we just had to keep on bombing this wood
CB: And the effect?
AG: Well, it seemed to work alright, but erm, [pause]
CB: And what about the bombing then, other bombing, what other tasks were there? So, you talked about mine laying
AG: Yeh
CB: Well, let’s just cover minelaying for a bit, mine laying was at a low level wasn’t it
AG: Oh yes
CB: What height were you doing the mine laying?
AG: About five hundred feet
CB: Right
AG: And erm, after that I think, we were mainly doing supplies, down over France, to anyone who needed it, and we did take some paratroops over there, Occasionally we had some odd characters, there was a bloke arrived there, put his parachute on, and he’d got a very smart suit on and a bowler hat, and he was, we were dropping him outside some village, where he had to get in by himself after he landed, and pretend to be the mayor, which is why he was so smartly dressed [laughs]
CB: This was after D Day, was it?
AG: Oh, yeh, yeh, well after, yeh, and then we were sent down, a little while after that, we were sent down to Italy, ‘cos I think they had some idea of us towing gliders from Italy with heavy equipment across to Greece, but it didn’t come to anything, we been there about four or five days, and the whole thing in Greece, came to a grinding halt, so they just said, no we don’t need you and we came back to England. That picture there, is erm, when we were in Italy, Pomigliano, I think it’s a little aerodrome, not far outside Naples, [pause]. Not that we were looking forward to trying to get off there with gliders, because they’ve got these great big heavy power lines right across the end of the runways, we couldn’t see how the hell we were going to get high enough to get the glider over those
CB: Well, it’s the wrong side
AG: Fortunately, we never had to try
CB: Right, it was the
AG: We were a bit worried about that [laughs]
CB: It was the wrong side of Italy to go to Greece anyway wasn’t it?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh
CB: But, the gliders were on this airfield as, well, were they?
AG: Well, no, we didn’t get as far as that
CB: Right
AG: They would have been coming from somewhere else
CB: Yeh
AG: But they stopped it in the end, said it wasn’t necessary, Greece was in a hell of a mess at the time anyway and our troops were in there, so they didn’t need the gliders, so, go on home, so we went, back to England
CB: What was the balance between supplying, agents, in activity and doing bombing raids?
AG: Very few bombing raids, it was mainly, either supply, or erm, taking people over there. I remember we had to go to an American aerodrome and pick up some American paratroops, I was very sorry for them, ‘cos the sergeant in charge said ‘have you got a gun’ I said ‘well yes, of course I’ve got my usual forty five issue’. He said ‘right, well if the first bloke refuses to jump shoot him, I shall be pushing from the back and you go out anyway’ and I thought well that’s a fine way, and I didn’t even unholster the gun ‘cos I had no intention of doing it, but erm, I’m afraid with some of these Americans I was very sorry for them, they were shit scared and badly trained, still
CB: In what way were they badly trained?
AG: Well, they’d never done a jump before, this is why he thought the bloke in front might stick his toes in and refuse to jump out, ‘cos in the Stirling, it was a big hole in the floor and you went out that way, you didn’t go out the door, ‘cos there was always the danger of being caught by the wing, by the tail, plane as it came by, so, the Stirling had a hole in the floor, and erm, these people hadn’t done any jumps at all
CB: How extraordinary
AG: Yeh well this is it, you know, they got in and clipped on
CB: They had a static line to clip on?
AG: Yeh, that’s right, yeh
CB: But, they all went?
AG: Oh yes, they all went out, no bother at all, but erm, I won’t going to shoot anybody anyway, I was very sorry for them
CB: Now, on the supply raids and when your’e dropping, trips, when your’e dropping material and people, this is largely low level is it?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh,
CB: What sort of height?
AC: Particularly with people because you had to drop them from a reasonable low height, it’s no good chucking a parachute out you know, at eighteen thousand or something like that, and hoping he’s gonna get down to where he should, because if there’s any wind blowing he would land miles away
CB: So, what height were they being dropped?
AG: Oh, between five and six hundred most of them I think, as far as I remember
CB: And most of this is in the dark, is it?
AG: Oh yes, yeh of course
CB: How did the navigator find the target for this, because you’re on your own when you do this?
AG: Oh yes, yes, oh yeh. Well, he was told, you know, where to go and miles from wherever, and er, we just had to find it, or he did
CB: Were there electronic devices used to help?
AG: No, no, we didn’t have anything like that, we had an, erm, sort of a semi radar thing, in the plane which was the start of that sort of thing, but erm
CB: Was that H2S or different?
AG: I have no idea
CB: Or other words, a mapping radar, was it?
AG: Yeh, well, it showed up, you know, things like mountains and things like that, but that was all, I mean it was fairly beginning things
CB: So, when did you start, flying with 620 Squadron?
AG: Erm, [pause], oh dear, [pause], well, it was after I’d done my six months at St Athans, so that would be
CB: So, when did you go to St Athan?
AG: Erm, so that would be erm, [pause] when I were called up, I went to Blackpool, so it would be, erm, [pause] beginning of forty-three, I suppose
CB: For six months?
AG: Yeh [pause], or was it forty-two for six months? and then on, [pause] difficult to remember because
CB: So, when in forty-one did you join, what time of year?
AG: Oh, in the September
CB: Ok, so then you went to Blackpool?
AG: When I was called up, yeh
CB: Yeh
AG: I developed scarlet fever, the week I was called up, so the doctor said I’d got to stay there, I was in bed, with a blanket over the door, which had been sprayed by my mother, to keep the germs in the bedroom [laughs] and then so when I got to Blackpool, I had to report sick with scarlet fever, and the bloke said, ‘how long have you had it’? and I told him, and he said ‘no, that’s alright, you can carry on’ [laughs.] Yes, I remember that, I was sitting there and the nurse came round and said ‘why have you come’ and I said ‘’cos, I’ve got scarlet fever’ and I could see these two blokes, either side, go like that [laughter]
CB: Amazing, [pause] so, how long were you at Blackpool?
AG: Erm, oh, must have been about, I was there quite a long time
CB: You did your square bashing there, did you?
AG: Yeh, must have been, what, three months, oh, we were not only square bashing, I was, out digging in some place where they were putting in, erm, assault courses for people to practice on, we were out digging that, while I was there, they didn’t waste us.
CB: So, that would take you to Christmas?
AG: Yeh
CB: So, you went from Blackpool to St Athan?
AG: Yeh, well, I couldn’t tell you when
CB: So, that sounds like the beginning of forty-two, we’ll check it out anyway
AG: Yeh
CB: And you were there six months, so you would have joined the squadron
AG: Yeh
CB: When?
AG: I went from there, straight to Stradishall and joined up with the crew and then we finished up in Fairford
CB: But, you were involved in operations in D Day?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh
CB: How many tours did you do?
AG: Only the one
CB: Right, and how many ops did you do?
AG: Oh, thirty-two, something like that, just over thirty, a fraction over thirty
CB: I’m going to stop just for a mo.
AG: Yeh, right
CB: We are just going to talk a little bit about the crew, we’ve talked earlier about, when Allen sorted out the fuel distribution arrangements and how they were short of fuel, and that got him accepted, but how did the crew gel?
AG: Oh, very well, erm, our pilot had a car, I don’t know where he got it from, but he had a car at Fairford, and erm, we used to go out at night, to one of the local pubs, all of us
CB: All seven of you?
AG: Yeh, oh yeh, I think we meshed very well actually
CB: Right, and how well equipped were the pubs for supplying thirsty air crew?
AG: Oh, very well, particularly the one we used to go to which had a lot of really nice-looking girls serving there, which always started my pilot, [laughs] away [laughs] if he got half the chance [laughs]
CB: Yeh, and did they ever run out of beer?
AG: No, never, never, yeh
CB: So, part of the crew was commissioned, and part of it was NCO?
AG: Yeh
CB: So, what were your quarters like as an NCO?
AG: What were my what?
CB: Quarters, where were you?
AG: Oh, I was just in a billet with, twelve other people
CB: Right, so, what was the billet, a Nissan hut?
AG: Yeh, a Nissan hut, yeh, and at Fairford, we were right down the bottom of the hill, by the stream, where we could go fishing for trout, very naughty, and we knew what time the bailiff used to come round, and make sure there was nobody fishing in this trout stream, and so, we always used to make sure we weren’t down there when he came by [laughs]. No, I used to like trout, done on a coke stove
CB: Is that the coke stove in the Nissan hut?
AG: Yeh, yeh, that’s all the heat we had in there, was just one of these big coke stoves
CB: So, what was the recipe then, how did you deal with it, so you got the trout?
AG: Oh, put it in a tin on the top, after gutting it and chopping it, putting it on, and just standing it on the stove until it was cooked, knowing what the food was like, you know, we was always trying to add to it [laughs], one way or the other
CB: Were you normally hungry or was the normal amount adequate?
AG: Well, it was for me but I don’t think it was for some of them, but er, no, I always, I always, seemed to get on fairly well. The only funny thing that happened down at that Nissan hut that we were in, eh, one of the blokes had gone into town on his bicycle, when he came back, he’d thrown the bicycle over the fence, not realising, that he’d thrown it into a sewerage pit, so he climbed up and jumped in after it he turned up at the back door of the hut covered in green muck, and we threw things at him until he went away and got in the shower with all his clothes on [laughs] we weren’t going to let him in [laughs] Yeh, I can see that bloke standing there now
CB: How many uniforms did you have? He had to dry it out, first did he?
AG: Er, well, you really had one and a spare which you kept, you kept one, you know, for parades and one thing and another, and a spare, and of course when I became a warrant officer, then I was never short of clothes and it was all extremely smart, and I had more spares than I could cope with
CB: At what stage did you become a warrant officer?
AG: Oh, in my third year, because you went up one rank every year, this is why we had flight lieutenant rear gunner, he’d gone [laughs] gradually up [laughs] anyway
CB: So, you, worked well as a crew?
AG: Oh, yeh, really well
CB: And, erm, how did the food come, if you were flying at night, before you
AG: Well, we had to eat before we went
CB: Right, so what was that
AG: If it was a night flight
CB: Ok, what did you get?
AG: Well, anything that was going, you know, I seem to remember a lot of sausages in those days, I suppose they were easy to come by and easy to make so, they were alright, yeh
CB: Did they keep pigs on the station?
AG: No, not that I ever saw
CB: And, when you landed after an op, what did you get for food?
AG: Eh, well roughly the same thing again, whatever was available, you know, but erm,
CB: Bacon and egg?
AG: Oh yes, yes, we always had that, the only thing that I remember about coming back late one night, before we’d taken off, I’d gone out to the aircraft with a bicycle and had a look round like, as I usually did, and er, when we landed I got on the bike and whizzed off back, and, in the meantime they’d put a barbed wire fence across the bloody path and I rode straight into that and went flying, pitch down, and I got barbed wire cuts all up one arm, and of course, we hadn’t been debriefed or anything, so in between take off and being debriefed, I’d been wounded, I was entitled to a wound stripe, and I thought I shall never have the cheek to wear it, so I didn’t, ‘cos it wasn’t my fault they’d put a barbed wire fence up there
CB: Now, you’ve raised an interesting point there, the wound stripe, how was that allocated and then shown on the uniform?
AG: Well, you had an upside down v, a little red v on the bottom of your left-hand sleeve, I mean I’ve seen
CB: On the wrist?
AG: I saw a bloke once, he’d got fifteen of these all up this arm, so I thought, he must be ruddy unlucky [laughs]
CB: So, this will come as a result of aerial combat of some kind, would it?
AG: Oh yeh, oh yeh
CB: So, how often were you hit and by what?
AG: Well, the only time we were hit, hit badly, was when we were so short of fuel, because they’d absolutely peppered the aircraft, it was full of holes all over, up in, down, and underneath, under the tanks in the wings and everywhere. It was our own fault because we’d arrived ten minutes too late, we blamed the navigator, the rest of the bomber crews had gone on by, so we were flying over Ludwigshafen on our own, we were getting pasted
CB: No fire?
AG: No, fortunately
CB: And er, so that’s flak, so what about fighter attack, how often did you have those?
AG: No, we were lucky, we never had one, ever, [emphasis] although our gunners were ready, but we were lucky to get away with it, particularly when we were doing those Norway trips, ‘cos we’d got no cover there at all, and everything was wide open, you could see our shadow moving across the snow, and this German fighter place up in the north of Denmark, was huge, God knows how many fighters they had there, but we were lucky, we got away with it every time we went to Norway we got away with it without seeing one. The only time we got shot at in Norway, going up the creek to Oslo, and we had to go over Oslo and up into the mountains, to drop this stuff, and in the creek was three islands, one there, one there and one there, and they all had German flak guns on, fortunately, we came in so low that we were leaving a wake up this creek, I looked out and I could see it
CB: On the water?
AG: On the water, and this island was firing at us and hitting the other island, which we thought was quite good [laughs] but when we got to the third one of course, we were just taking a chance, round and round and out quick and after that it was just up over Oslo and into the mountains [pause] interesting, it was only last year that it was in the paper that they found some of this stuff up there that had been dropped, and the people up there never found it
CB: Where they able to find out who had, which aircraft had dropped it?
AG: No, no, they couldn’t find out anything about it at all
CB: So, you said, earlier, that the, Stirling was grossly under-rated, and you thought it was a brilliant aeroplane, what was so special about the Stirling in your perception?
AG: Well, the fact that it was solid metal, you know, it would stand up to practically anything, and only get minor damage, and of course the engines were superb, far better than anything on any of the other aircraft
CB: So, what engines were on the Stirling?
AG: Oh, those Bristol Radials
CB: Hercules
AG: Yeh, I know that we started off with two, two banks of pots and finished up with three, and erm, they were really good, far better than these Merlin engines, ‘cos these would take punishment, the others wouldn’t
CB: Going back to your training, looking at your training manuals, books you filled in, erm, exercise books, when you were training, there, there’s a section on everything but, the significance of the Stirling was it was, it had so much electrics on it, so how well were you prepared at St Athan, for going onto an aircraft that had such a large amount of electrics?
AG: Oh, pretty well, I think I never had any trouble with any of it, the only thing I nearly did one night, was to cook the pigeon, they gave us, in case we came down in the North Sea, and we were sat in a dinghy, there you know, waiting to be rescued, they gave us a pigeon that we could put on out last position and send it off, and I put this pigeon on the floor and I didn’t realise until I got back, that I’d stood it up against this heating pipe that was coming through from one of the engines, I thought the bloody thing will be cooked, but it was perfectly alright, thank goodness [laughs]
CB: Just gone deaf
AG: Well, it must have been warm, which was more than the rest of us were on some of these flights
CB: Where was the warmest part on the aircraft?
AG: At the end of this pipe that was coming through from the inner starboard engine
CB: That was the heater for the fuselage, was it?
AG: Yeh, that’s right, yeh
CB: So, what were the things that were electric, driven electrically, on the Stirling?
AG: Well, practically everything, I mean, I’d got a bank of dials in front of me where I was, which were, erm, you know, gave you an indication of how much fuel was in each tank, ‘cos you had one for each tank, starboard and port, and that was all run by electrics, I mean, if you lost your electrics, you’d got no guides at all, that sort of thing, but we never did, fortunately
CB: And, were any of the flying controls electric?
AG: Ah, the only thing that I knew about, that was my job, was the undercarriage, which was electric, down and up, but, erm, if that had failed I could do that by hand take me about half an hour I should think [laughs] ‘cos it was really hard work, but er, that you could do
CB: And, what about the trimmer? so, in the flying controls, were the trimmers electric?
AG: Erm, yes, but that was done either by the co-pilot, the bomb aimer or the pilot, I never had anything to do with that
CB: You said earlier that you had to stand up all the time, but did you have a seat for take-off and landing?
AG: Well, I had to sit on the parachute
CB: Where?
AG: The type of the parachute was the cushion type, with the two, rings at the back, which you just clicked onto your harness, which was there at the front, you just clicked on, yeh that’s right, on the front, [pause] and as it was that sort of thick, and that big, we used to sit on it
CB: Now, thinking now, about the take-off and landing, as the engineer, to what extent, were you involved in helping with the take-off with the throttles?
AG: Not at all, the pilot did it all and I used to watch the dials and make sure that there was nothing I had to tell him
CB: So, were you sitting next to him at that point, or
AG: No, no I was
CB: You were standing?
AG: No, I was either standing, bouncing up and down on me toes or, sat on the parachute looking at all this, wall of dials in front of me
CB: And erm, with most flight engineer tasks, positions, er, logs had to be taken, so,
AG: Oh yeh
CB: What logging did you do and how often?
AG: Well, you had to do one for every flight
CB: But, during the flight, what did you have to record?
AG: Well, if anything went wrong or, we needed something that wasn’t there or whatever, you had to put it in the log, you know, but erm, I never seemed to have any trouble with that, we were lucky really, we really were lucky
CB: From what you have said, fuel management is a key matter, so, of the tanks, in what sequence did you, use for fuel, you’d have one for take-off and then how did you distribute the fuel?
AG: Well, there was two big tanks, number two and number four, in each wing, and you used those for take-off particularly if you were towing a glider because you used a lot of it, and er, once you were up and on a long, fairly longish flight, because we did, we had to go twelve hours sometimes, which took us nearly down to the Swiss border, to supply, Free French that were in the hills there, in the foothills, and erm, as I said, it was, by the time we got back to base again, we’d been out twelve hours
CB: And erm, in terms of the next range of tanks, how did you switch, in what sequence did you use the fuel?
[background noise]
AG: Well, you used the little ones, number one and number two
CB: Which are on the wing tips?
AG: Number one and number three, out, at the far end, you use those first, on both wings, and you tried to keep them going to the engines, you got [pause] like two engines there, and two engines there and you had to keep them going, from the same tanks, pretty well for the same length of time, so you’d know exactly what type of tank was going to be empty, you didn’t have to look at your dial until it went empty, I mean, you had to do it by time, and er, whatever revs were on the engines
CB: And, setting the revs on the engines, and the pitch of the screws, who dealt, did that?
AG: Oh, that was the pilot, did that
CB: Right
AG: And if you didn’t like what he was doing, you had to tell him and he had to alter it
CB: And to what extent was it necessary to synchronise the engines in flight?
AG: Er, not a lot really, we had an extremely good ground crew and normally we found that they’d adjust, perfectly, [pause] because we really relied on our ground crew a lot and we had four really good blokes
CB: And did they come out with you, in the evenings sometimes or did they?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh, oh yeh, we thought a lot of those fellas, in fact I gave one of them my bike, when I left, when I was posted away from the squadron, erm, I gave him my bicycle, which I was sad about, but, he deserved it
CB: So, you come to the end of your tour, and you did thirty, thirty-two operations, what did you do after that?
AG: Well, we only had one flight after that because the officer’s mess had run out of beer, we had to fly over to Northern Ireland and bring back a load of beer for them [laughs]
CB: Must have been an arduous trip!
AG: Oh yeh, [laughs] because we’d have liked to have gone on over there and done something, really naughty, because at that time the IRA were building bonfires in the shape of arrows, pointing, to where the aerodrome was
CB: Oh, for German bombers?
AG: That’s right, yeh, bastards [emphasis]
CB: And, how long had they been doing that for?
AG: Practically, since the war started
CB: And how were they dealt with?
AG: Well, they should have been bloody shot, but we never got around to it! It’s like that bloke McGuiness, I mean he’s in the Irish government now, he was the one that started that Bloody Sunday, he was the one on top with the rifle, firing at our troops what did they think, that we weren’t going to fire back? I don’t know, that bastard should have been shot, and you can write that down and put my name on it [laughs]
CB: So, the arrows bit is interesting, how long did that go on for?
AG: Oh, quite a long time during the war, [pause] yeh, swines
CB: And, what did the beer taste like when you got it back
AG: Oh, that weren’t for us, that was for the officer’s mess, we weren’t allowed to touch it
CB: Didn’t you sample it to make sure it was ok?
AG: No
CB: So, your last flight was keeping them topped up, then what did you do? So, you’ve left the squadron now
AG: Oh, well, I was erm, posted away then, and er, [pause] and finished up at a place called Burnham Beeches
CB: In Buckinghamshire?
AG: Yeh, and erm
CB: What happened there?
AG: Well, nothing really, I don’t think they knew what to do with us, I mean that was where I learnt how to play tennis, one of the blokes there, he’d been champion of Yorkshire for two or three years, and he gave me one of his racquets, and I’ve still got it, I’d still use it, if I played tennis, which I thought was very nice of him, and er, we went rowing on the river there and all sorts of things. As I said they didn’t know what to do with us, we were just keeping out the way
CB: So, we’re after Arnhem now aren’t we, so
AG: Oh yeh
CB: So, what sort of time are we talking about? In the autumn or are we later?
AG: Oh erm, [pause] now, I think I went there if I remember rightly, I went there in er, January, February somewhere like that, fairly early
CB: Forty-five
AG: At Burnham Beeches and we were erm, we’d taken over this big country house that was there, and erm, they just kept the top floor, to live in, and we had the offices all down below, and er, working in there
CB: Doing what?
AG: Well, I was sat in the office there, and it was a most peculiar effort, if they, had a man posted from Edinburgh to Glasgow, an RAF policeman, he had to come all the way down to us, be booked into my office and booked out again, and given travel warrants and away he went, most peculiar efforts, still there you are, you wondered who was running these things sometimes
CB: And then after, how long did that go on for?
AG: Oh, I think I was there for about erm, three or four months [background noise] and then I was posted to Leicester
CB: Leicester East? The airfield, Leicester East?
AG: Oh no, no, no, no, just somewhere in Leicester, erm, and erm, I was there for about a fortnight or so I think, and then I went back to Burnham Beeches and got discharged, and went to London and picked up my civvies
CB: Then what? So, you’re discharged, demobbed, what did you do then?
AG: Well, I went home and had a week off and then I went back to work for the Danish Bacon company, shit house firm
[background laughter]
CB: Would you like to explain why they were like that? What was it that was so upsetting about the Danish Bacon
AG: Well, because I’d
CB: Company
AG: Been here for nearly forty years, until I got another job and I wanted to take my pension and money, put it into this new firm and they were going to treat it as though I’d been there all the time, so I’d have had a really good pension when I did eventually retire, but they wouldn’t do it, they made me take all the money out and it was only what I’d paid in, nothing of theirs, and I had to take it out as my last week’s wages and the income tax was unbelievable, not a nice firm, fortunately, they went out of business after that
CB: Right, so
AG: It went broke
CB: When did you leave them?
AG: Ah, [pause] I’m scratching for the year, [pause] I can’t remember to be honest
CB: So, you left the RAF in forty-five
AG: Yeh
CB: How long did you stay with the Danish Bacon people?
AG: Er, oh another [pause] eight or nine years
CB: Then what?
AG: Then I got this offer of this new job
CB: At?
AG: Patrick Grainger and Hutley’s, at Fordingbridge
CB: What were you doing there?
AG: I was assistant manager and I was also travelling round, seeing some of their customers, and building up trade of course
CB: Ok, we’ll just have a break there, thank you
CB: So, you kept staying, kept with Patrick Grainger, who’d then been taken over by Danish Bacon until you retired after forty years. We are now going back to flying, so when you were flying Allen, as the engineer, you had to log various things because it was important to see how the plane was performing. What were you logging?
AG: Well, if you have a look at this, its erm, oil pressure, oil temperatures and cylinder temperatures
CB: Right, ok, and how often were you doing that? Did you have to do it at a particular time? Every hour?
AG: Yeh, well, this, if you look at the times down the left-hand side, its roughly about every fifteen minutes, I think
CB: Right
AG: But, I had another line, right the way across
CB: Yeh, so, when you got back, you, the aircraft lands, we didn’t get on to debrief, but, you’re the engineer, when you get out of the aircraft, who’s the first person you speak to, is that the Chiefy?
AG: Erm
CB: Your ground engineer?
AG: No, I wouldn’t see anybody until I got back into the debriefing hut
CB: Ok, so at debriefing, what would you be doing?
AG: Well, I had to hand my log in
CB: Right
AG: And erm,
CB: That you’d been completing in the flight?
AG: That’s right, yeh this one
CB: Yeh, ok, and then what, who was the person that looked at that?
AG: Well, they used to take them all away, and erm, if I remember rightly, it was the chap who was in charge of all the, erm, maintenance and all that stuff, he’d go through it, and any anomalies he’d then probably come, and ask you what happened then and [unclear]
CB: This would be the station engineering officer?
AG: Yeh
CB: Who would be dealing with all of that or one of his erm, people?
AG: Well, it was a bloke in charge of erm, all the ground crews
CB: Yeh, yeh
AG: He’d want to see that
CB: Now, would you then join the rest of the crew for the crew debriefing, what would happen?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh, we would all go and sit down together
CB: Where would that be and who would you see?
AG: Well, the CO would be there and a couple of his underlings and erm, they’d just go through the whole thing, right from the take off and erm, and talk to the pilot about what happened here and what happened there, and did he have any trouble, and went right through and made sure that we’d put either the bombs in the right place or erm, or supplied the people that were in the exact same spot that they were supposed to be in, because sometimes all you would get was one bloke flashing a morse letter on his torchP particularly if we were on one of those Norway trips, we used to go miles over the snow, and there would be some poor bugger right up in the mountains, with his torch, and then we would drop all these containers down there, so, what they did with them after that I don’t know, whether they towed them away or what
CB: So, the debrief, covers all the aspects of the flight?
AG: Yeh, oh yeh
CB: And, bearing in mind in many cases, your, you were a special duties squadron, so you were supplying SOE, to what extent were there SOE people there, during the debrief?
AG: Well, we assumed that, you know, there would be one or two officers there that we didn’t know where they come from, so it would have been them
CB: They were the air force officers?
AG: Yeh, it was either SOE or SAS
CB: Right
AG: Yeh
CB: What was the most memorable thing about your operational career, on operations?
AG: Oh, that one when we just got back with hardly any fuel, [laughs] the only thing that stands out in my mind
CB: Now, the aircraft had been peppered, pretty badly, why was it, it didn’t catch fire?
AG: Well, it was the way they were built, this is why we like the Stirling’s, there was nothing there to catch fire
CB: Did you have self-sealing fuel tanks?
AG: Well, up to a certain point but, that time we got caught with it, I mean, it had blown a hole about that big and of course that self-sealing didn’t work, over that size
CB: But the tank was empty anyway?
AG: Well, yeh, I ran all four engines on it, until I could see there was nothing left, and just went switching from one to another, then eking it out as well as I could, until we got back, right [hand clap] good
CB: Finally, where did you meet your wife?
AG: Ah, when I was at St Athans
CB: And what was she doing there?
AG: Well, she was doing this erm, mechanics training course, which she finished up doing, erm, I don’t think she was ever on, erm, an operating squadron, er, she was at this aerodrome down by Exeter, I went down there to see her once or twice, and erm, you know, that was it
CB: Was she on the flight line looking after the aircraft, or in the hangar?
AG: Oh, both, because erm, the only thing she ever moaned about it was the fact that they were working out in the rain, with no cover and erm, the only way they could get dry was to go in and stand with all their clothes on by this coke stove, get it red hot and stand there and hope their clothes dried, which is why she finished up with really bad arthritis in her legs, I reckon, because of that
CB: So, when did you meet her, oh you met her when you were at St Athan
AG: Yeh
CB: When did you marry?
AG: Oh, about er, about ten years later [pause] I can’t remember what year it was that we got married, no idea
CB: Sounds like about nineteen fifty-three?
AG: Hmm, probably, somewhere around there [background talking] yeh, one thing I should remember and I don’t
CB: Thank you very much
AG: Oh, it’s alright sir
CB: On the minelaying, you were talking about, so this is, the other side, having to fly the other side of Denmark
AG: Yeh
CB: How did that raid go, were you high up and then went down or, and how did you do the mining run
AG: Well, it was our first op that was, erm, well it was just a question of relying on the navigator, ‘cos I didn’t know where we were going, and erm, anyway, we had to come down really low, off this island I think it was called [unclear] Byrum [?] and er, drop these mines right across the erm, entrance to the harbour. If anything had come in there, they would have gone off, so, and then we came back, and flew up between the other side of Denmark and Sweden, and watched all Sweden being lit up, lights on the piers and all the way along the sea front, looked beautiful, we ain’t seen anything like that for years
CB: And then you were, we’ve got a picture here, of your, aircraft, on the flight line ready for take-off for Arnhem, so, could you talk us through that one?
AG: Well, erm
CB: What were you carrying?
AG: Well, the first day was alright, we were just carrying supplies, the only thing that buggered up Arnhem was the Americans, again, as usual. Erm, our troops took the first bridge, the Americans were supposed to take the second one, and we dropped our troops on the third one, and they’re the ones we were supplying, and erm, of course the Americans made a cock of it and couldn’t take theirs, which left our blokes on the third bridge sticking out on their own, and unfortunately, the intelligence was so bad, that nobody realised that, just a little way, away from there, there was, a big mass of Germans, who had taken back for a rest from the Russian front, and they had got their tanks and everything there, and our blokes on the third bridge didn’t stand a chance. They were gradually surrounded, erm, we went over there again and dropped more supplies, but the third day when we went over there, we didn’t realise but we were dropping to the Germans, and that we were sitting ducks at that height, fortunately, our pilot decided not to climb away and leave us vulnerable, he went down even further, and went in between the two milk factory chimneys and came out over the sea, clever bloke
CB: At what height were you dropping?
AG: Oh, about five hundred feet
CB: And how much stuff did you drop, it was in containers with parachutes, was it?
AG: No, it was all in, yeh, it was all in containers with parachutes, because we were, the first and second time actually dropping to our troops, it was the third time when we weren’t and didn’t realise it
CB: What was in the containers?
AG: Oh, small arms and food and supplies, and all that sort of thing
CB: Right, anything else? Good, thank you
AG: And we were erm, the planes were being loaded up, for supplies to the French, in some area, and er, we were walking out and one of the containers fell out the plane, and hit the ground, so we all went flat, so we thought knowing what was likely to be in them. Anyway, when the dust had settled and they hadn’t gone off, we walked over and had a look in this container, half of it was full of socks and the other half was full of durex, and I thought the French don’t need those [laughter] and they don’t use them anyway, [laughter] and I thought well, that’s a bloody fine thing, we are risking our necks taking over socks [emphasis] and anyway [laughter] that’s what wars all about I suppose
CB: They’d say that’s what they put in them before they chucked it
AG: Yeh, I’d forgotten, yeh, I’d forgotten about that, and I suddenly thought about this thing dropping down, and we all dived flat, because we reckoned it was going to blow up, but it didn’t, and we walked over to have a look, and that what was in it, socks and durex [laughs]
[Other] That’s the first time I’d heard Dad be angry about the Americans
AG: They were normally shit scared and badly trained
CB: The Americans?
AG: Yeh
CB: Right, erm, thank you.
Dublin Core
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AGouldAG160708
Title
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Interview with Allen Geoffrey Gould
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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01:10:32 audio recording
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Chris Brockbank
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2016-07-08
Description
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Allen Gould grew up in Bournemouth and worked for the Danish Bacon company until volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron from RAF Fairford. Post war, he married his wife, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. He returned to the Danish Bacon company and worked there for another forty years.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Norway
Wales
England--Gloucestershire
England--Suffolk
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Italy
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Chris Cann
620 Squadron
aircrew
animal
bombing
flight engineer
mine laying
RAF Fairford
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/931/11289/ALonghurstWJ180407.1.mp3
424c626566a83d4f46af2bc68695d0e3
Dublin Core
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Title
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Longhurst, William Joseph
W J Longhurst
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bill Longhurst (b.1924, 1874159 Royal Air Force). He served as a flight mechanic with 620 squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-04-07
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Longhurst, WJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DB: This is Denise Boneham and today I am interviewing William, Bill Longhurst, and today’s date is the 7th of April 2018 and it is currently 14.10. Bill, would you like to tell me a little bit about your life involved with the RAF?
BL: Certainly. Certainly, I volunteered for the RAF when I was just turned seventeen and a half, because I didn’t want to go in the Army. I was, had been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, 1552 Squadron, Hackney Wick for two years and had decided that that’s where I would like to go, so when I got, I went to Euston Road Recruitment Centre, volunteered, had my medical and was awaiting to hear, my calling up, but before I got my calling up for the RAF I had a calling up paper for the army, or so I thought for the army. When I got to the Territorial Centre at Leytonstone after I had a medical, I went to see the reception, reception party there and I said, ‘could you tell me why I’ve been, received these calling up papers to come here?’ They said, ‘well, because you have your calling up for the army.’ I said, ‘Oh well I’m not,’ I said, ‘I’ve already volunteered for the RAF.’ He said, ‘have you been, got your papers?’ So I said, ’No.’ So he said, ‘well evidently they don’t want you.’ So I got a bit annoyed at that and thought what could I do? Well I walked away from the person interviewing me and I got called by one of the other interviewers, which was the second one along, and he called me over and he said, ‘there is an RAF officer along the corridor, about the fourth door on the left,’ he said, ‘go and, go along there,’ he said, ‘knock at the door and have a chat with him.’ Which I did. When I went along and knocked on the door and was asked to go in. I said sure enough I said there was a pilot officer sitting at the desk and he said,’ Can I help you?’ and I said, ‘yes, very much.’ I said, ‘because I volunteered for the RAF, I said, ‘I’ve been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, which is changed to the Air Training Corps,’ I said, ‘and they’ve just told me now that I’ve been called up for the army.’ So he said, ‘that’s’ ridiculous, we can’t have that can we? We can’t lose someone like yourself.’ So he took full particulars and sure enough, I got my call up papers for the RAF. I, when I called up, I said, I called up and had to go to Bedford, and Cardington at Bedford, and when we got there, I said most of the people who lived around London I said, were called up and put in the billets. And the corporal come along, sorted us out in groups and we was marched off to get kitted out, with a greatcoat only. And I thought well that looks funny, this thing, this greatcoat fitted me twice! So I said, I said to the chap ‘this not my greatcoat surely!’ ‘Don’t worry.’ He said’ ‘you’re only going to get your photograph taken. So the next thing we did, we went along, and the chap draw the number, he had the one, he drew my number 187459 and I had to carry this piece of board, I said and sat down and do me greatcoat up, and I said you know I looked ridic, stuck, had a big greatcoat. Anyway, held the number in front and was told you know, no smiling, just look straight ahead. The photograph was taken and that was that, that was my first day at Cardington. On the evening, the chap came along, and was a sergeant this time, and he said, ‘right,’ he says, ‘you won’t be, tomorrow morning,’ he said, ‘you’ll be leaving here,’ he said, ‘so we’ll be kitting you out first,’ he said, then ‘with the kit,’ he said, ‘and you’ll be boarding the train which goes from the, there’s a halt specially for recruits.’ And he said, ‘by the way anybody live in London?’ He said, ‘there’s a poss’, oh everybody put their hand up, I said that’s great he said where’s the aerodrome you’d like to be? Well, being I lived in east London, I thought Hornchurch. I said, ‘I’d like to be at Hornchurch.’ There’s another couple of chaps also wanted and they were all saying all sorts of aerodromes which surrounded London, couple of you’s going to be very lucky then tomorrow. So the next morning when we rose, we got kit and then we marched on to the square which was quite close to where the halt was, and the train came in and eventually we climbed aboard the train and off we took. All the names of the stations during the war was taken down, so we didn’t know which way, where we were going, so we went to the, went away from the halt and on to the main line station and we started heading away to wherever we were destined to stop. We carried on along the track for some miles but no one could see or could remember which way we were going, [cough] and eventually one of the chaps turned round and said, ‘I’m afraid we’re not going towards London at all, we’re away somewhere else.’ So we all guessing, had a guessing game until finally [emphasis] we pulled in to Skegness. Now Skegness was a, when we got off the train there we were then marched straight away to have a meal and when we’d had our meal, we had to then form up outside and the corporal was there, they were drill corporals, they picked us, sorted us into sections and we were marched off to various places were our billets. Now the first ones that we went to was in Drummond Road in Skegness and that was a four-storey house, ex, people, you know, people that went there for holidays, right next to a place called the Arcadia: that was a theatre. And that’s where we were until half way through our training when we was transferred round on to the Windsor Hotel which was on the sea front. Now that was very good there, very good, big rooms and we were in the front room down stairs which was evidently a dining room which had beds in this time. [cough] We had these, our vaccinations and other, other inoculations and I unfortunately got vaccine fever and I was confined for twenty four hours, or sorry forty eight hours, excused duty, which one of the members had to bring back my food because I was confined to beds for forty eight hours. That they didn’t like very much! About three days later we had our, we did a stint of drill on the sea front, different things, doing this drill, we were then told to go indoors, change for PT, PE, well when we get inside everybody is shouting and talking, you know, getting ready to go. Unfortunately we had no blinds to pull and curtains to close, and two WAAFs was walking by, happened to stop outside the door, window, and everybody says oh there’s a couple of WAAFs out there and we said you know, everybody was saying, ‘oy oy, go on, move along, move along,’ because we were in a state of undress, some of us. So a sergeant suddenly walked through the front door, and he said, came in and he says, ‘right you lot,’ he says, ‘you’re on cookhouse fatigue tonight.’ So he says, ‘no need for that rumpus, you’re only attracting more attention.’ So that was that. So we ended up in the cookhouse which was unfortunate for me because I do not like cheese, no way do I like cheese and what we had for tea that night was toasted, sorry, fried bread with fried cheese on the top of it. So it was, well I had the job of washing all the trays out, that was my job. The only thing I had to eat that day was scrape the cheese off the fried bread and ate the fried bread: that was it, so that wasn’t very good at all. Right, so, the training was very good, and Alvar Lidell was a radio commentator, talking on the news on the BBC. Now he happened to be called up at the same time as we were, and in the paper a couple of days later it said: “Alvar Lidell is in Skegness. This is Alvar Lidell, a photograph of him and this is the square and Alvar Lidell bashing it.” Because when he used to announce on the BBC he used to say, ‘this is the news and Alvar Lidell reading it.’ The next thing I was I went on leave from, after did my infantry training and I went on leave and after that, I had my seven days leave I was posted to RAF Filton as a trainee mechanic. We had two Blenheims on this station at Filton, which is a, belongs really to the RAF and the Bristol Aircraft Company. Now we had two WAAF flight mechanics at the time, and most of the time I did more or less things that they asked me to do, different things, and if they wanted help, anything shape or form, I used to help them to do that. I used to have to prime the engines which are underneath the engine lascelles and they used to have the trolley action, tell the pilot, the other one used to tell the pilot when he’d to turn the props. So, sometimes they were, it was okay and sometimes it was a bit dodgy because, when they used to prime the aircraft, where you pushed the priming pump in it used to push petrol into the spider which was on the top of the cylinders and the pilot at the same time was told to turn the propellers to suck the petrol up into the engines and switch the switches on, make them start. Sometimes they’d start straight away and other times they used to just bang away and it’d frighten the pilot because it didn’t start first time and he’d switch the engine off. Which was unfortunate because by this time the petrol in the intake had caught light, and naturally the petrol, as it was an updraught carburettor, underneath, the petrol used to run down and drip out into the pour, under the aircraft under, the engine. The first thing you could do was to take your cap off, hold it over the air intake, signal to the chap on the trolley act and tell the pilot to start the engines again to suck the flames up into the engine and you finished up with a burnt cap! Oh dear, dear, dear. Right well.
DB: I’ll just stop it for a minute while you think about it.
BL: Our aircraft was mostly, being A-Able it was mostly the flight commander’s aircraft. Consequently, If they had a special job for it, SOE or a special person, man or woman, to be dropped they usually got the aircraft. Right. One day we was on the airfield and there was an aircraft landed, two actually, they were Flying Fortresses. The Flying Fortresses they landed, came round the perimeter track, parked somewhere on the field, and one of their coaches pulled up. The coach, it come from the hospital which is the Cheltenham, there’s a hospital, American, across over at Cheltenham, and they’d come to see some of their buddies that been, were convalescing there, but some of the ground crew that used to fly with them, they came along and they started walking round the aircraft. So, one of them came, coloured chap, big feller and two others, came round and stood in front of our Stirlings and looked up and said: ‘By Gal!’ he said. ‘What an aircraft,’ he said, ‘Look at the size of it, beat Flying Fortresses hands down. Look at the size of it, what a babe, look at the size of that.’ He said, ‘how many guns in it?’ When we told him four, he turned round and said, ‘four,’ ‘yeah and they’re at the back.’ So he walked, they walked round and had a look. He said, ‘I can’t get over the size, can I go inside and have a look?’ So I said, ‘yeah, I’ll come in with yer.’ Cause I didn’t know what, you know, what they might do, so we went into the aircraft and when we come out the aircraft after he’d had a look round, he came out, put his hand in his pocket, he said, ‘‘ere, have a cigar,’ he said, he put his hand in his pocket, ‘have two!’ Right, that’s that one. A couple of days later we had a fighter, American Mustang, came round the airfield, landed. I think there was an officer, colonel, somebody, evidently come to see his friend or whatever, and this was his aircraft, he parked it up. They’d been doing some work on the perimeter track and they’d dug up part of it, not a very big hole, but big enough, and when he came back, he got in his aircraft, taxied round the perimeter track and unfortunately very, very similar to the Stirling, he’s tail down, when you’re taxying with your tail down you can’t see over the nose, so you have to look side to side, and he goes, taxies you know, from side to side around the perimeter track. Unfortunately for this officer, found where they’d dug the ‘ole! And he ended up in the hole. Well, you know, his propeller got smashed [unclear]. It stopped the engine naturally, so didn’t catch fire or anything. But when we went and got him, walked over to him to see if he’s all right, he said, ‘my god,’ he said, ‘I’m in bloody trouble now!’ he said, because he shouldn’t have been there. [unclear] And that was it, but I don’t know what happened to it. I think the Americans sent a motor and got it out. We had to get it out of the hole with our Coles crane and they come and collected it, took it away. We actually got on very well with all the aircraft, all the aircrew on it and they were pals with everybody. They was, had, some of them had got themselves a second-hand car but they didn’t get enough petrol to go with it and always needed a bit of petrol. And unfortunately, we could only let them have a hundred octane, but, what we used to do, we used to give them some petrol in a car, in a can and we’d water it down with some oil, not too much: it smoked, smoked out the vehicle, and we used to do that, we used to help them out a little bit on that aspect, you know. And every now and again you’d get somebody would come out with the glider pilots, they’re going out for the night, some of them used to have some big motors. So I said don’t expect, I’m not trading this aircraft for your flippin’ car, no way! So, but no matter who you were, I won’t mention the names, but I used to have the flight commander and it was from right the way down, if they wanted help that way, I used to climb up on the undercarriage sometimes if I knew that the aircraft still had to be refuelled and drain off five gallons and put it in the motor, you know for them [unclear]. Might be their last night. So, that’s, that’s the way I helped them. They were very good to us, they used to save all their flying rations if they didn’t want them. They used to have nuts, raisins, chocolate, different things, sweet cigarettes, corporal, sweet caporal cigarettes, lucky strike, you name it, anyway it was all the, they used to come because they used to be a mixed crew. We always had a mixed crew, I don’t think I ever had an all RAF crew. And anyway, that was my way of helping them and they used to take us out every so often, and say meet you down the pub tonight boys, we’re not on our ops, all right, all right, meet you down the pub, and they used to buy us drinks and give us all their rations, throw ‘em on the table and we have, have a good night out really. Yes, or, or, they used to say right off tonight, all together, anybody fancy going to a dance in the village or wherever, and they used to take us out there and it was very nice and handy because at least we had an officer and they were allowed out after midnight and they used to, can be driving the car come through the main gate and the corporals look down look in and say Flying Officer or Pilot Officer so-and-so and company and right through. [Laughter] It used to happen quite a lot actually. That one. One day we was waiting for something to happen, as it’s coming, certain parts of, area of the, Europe, were being, after D, right, after D-Day we had a, quite a few places and things to do that we was working every day, doing all sorts of things, we was taking more troops, dropping supplies, dropping petrol for cars in five gallon drums, for lorries I meant, and tanks and that. We were very, very busy all the time, twenty four hours a day of doing work, stuff like that. Most of, some of them was on the dropping more specialist troops to areas that were needed out there and also arms and ammunition. The ammunition they didn’t have enough of that type of ammunition, that went over as quickly as possible. [Whispered] I’d love another one. One day we was er, decided to go, we had a day off, we did meet a couple of WAAFS, there were three of us: three men, three WAAFs. We all had our hopper bikes and decided as it was a beautiful day we decided to go down and see the river Severn because it wasn’t far from the river Severn. So we went down there, spent the day down there, you know like visiting the pub and one thing and another, and unfortunately one of the WAAFs got a little bit tipsy and on our way back to the camp, on our way back to the camp it was an uphill struggle on the hill. Got over the hill alright, she was a bit slow, but as she got over the hill it gathered momentum, unfortunately the, the road was resurfaced, just been resurfaced. And the resurface them days was tar spray and sprinkling of small shingle on the top and a quick roll over with the steam roller. Well, this poor girl got going so fast she couldn’t guide her bike properly, whatever, her mind wasn’t looking straight over, but over she went and she landed on her knees, tore her knees and laddered her stockings or her legs, oh, what a shame, you know she was in a bit of a state, so we was just walking back to the camp. I’m going to tell you now about our times when we used to go home on leave. Ah, well, we didn’t always get a ticket to go on leave. We always had to jump ship you would call it. Well, we used to have a chap who was very keen on talking to us chaps because he worked in the Orderly Room so no excitement in the Orderly Room, [laugh] no excitement in the Orderly Room so what he did, he used to come with us, you know, come to the NAAFI with us, and talk to us and ask us different things in the RAF as you do, so I said we, I want to go home on leave, for a couple of days, is any chance of giving me a 295, he said yeah, will you stamp it for me? Which he did. Right, right our crew, oh dear, our crew crashed at, in France on D-Day, or just prior to D-Day and we had a new flight commander arrive, Squadron Leader Bunker. Now Squadron Leader Bunker, he’s a legend. He joined the RAF on a short term and in just 1938, 1938 and became a pilot when war broke out and he flew right up until 1945, about 1945, 46 some time there, I haven’t got the correct time, date. And he was flying back, he was, took over from 620, 190 Squadron lost their flight, their wing commander so as he was a squadron leader in, on 620, they made him up to the wing commander. He took charge of the squadron and he was taking, they were doing the same ops as we were and he was flying cans of petrol to Belgium and bringing back prisoners of war, ex-prisoners of war to England and landing them at Oadby in Leicester, in Surrey, Sussex or Surrey, Oadby. Now when he landed there, they are still on operation and they are helicopters, large helicopters are flying from there, on the same station. Now when he landed there, there was a two, the Stirling had two tail wheels, one tail wheel was punctured and they decided to take off from there to go back to Dunmow because they had something on at Dunmow and one aircraft started going along the runway, the wheel, because the tyre was flat, shimmied and as it was going along it was shimmying and it eventually it caught light, because of the heat, and naturally he didn’t know this and when he put his undercarriage up, the two tailwheels went up into the aircraft at the back. The rear gunner was still in his cockpit and the tail of the aircraft caught fire and exploded and blew the turret out and killed the air gunner as he hit the ground. The pilot then couldn’t control the aircraft and it was flying towards the village of Windlesham and he saw a, saw a games field and decided to make for that, so he made for that and could only put the aircraft down because it was aflame, he put the aircraft down in the playing field thus missing that town of Windlesham. And the town people put up and erected a big [emphasis] memorial for him and his crew, a man, Bill, ex-RAF man, decided to erect this memorial and did a lot of work for it, to this, and also he wrote to the church in Windlesham, commemorating this memorial, wrote to the church and asked them for permission to fly the RAF ensign at the church tower every year on the same day that the accident happened, and this was granted, and from that day to this on the anniversary the flag flies from the mast. Now I attended the memorial service and it was well attended by the CO of Oadby and other officers and representatives and included, his son invited me to the funeral and Janet and I we went down and we attended the funeral and we went to see a service in the Clement Danes church in Oxford Street, and we attended a service in there and also a meal of, in the – where the hell was it – we attended a meal in the Royal Courts of Justice across the road to commemorate it. Right, our next trip was to Fairford, the adj, the crew and the whole squadron moved from Fairford to Great Dunmow. Now when we got to Great Dunmow that was a different kettle of fish because Great Dunmow was built by the American Air Force, air force construction gang. Now they had aircraft built and up and running before we got there. So quite a few roads, pathwords, pathways were built, the only problem when we first landed, we found that their toilet arrangements were quite different from ours. When went to the toilets when we arrived there we naturally wanted to go to the loo, we arrived there we walked into the toilets and there was a row of WCs, all in a row, no doors, no particulars, nothing. So we looked at one another and thought what the hell’s going on here? There was urinals there, but there was, on the toilet, WCs no doors, nothing, no privacy whatsoever. So, we was all looking at one another and laughing. Eventually someone said what the hell is this all this about? You know. So I turned round and kept a straight face, and said well you know the Yanks, said they like to read their comics, I said and when they sitting next to each other and reading their comics and they’re nearly finished, if they finished the comic they hand it to the next one, I said and they pass the comics along. [laughter]. Right, that’s the end of that one. The tin huts were the same huts as the others. The name on our door was called the gold brickers, that was painted on our doors and I understand, I don’t know if it was correct, but I understand the gold brickers was the lazy buggers, so I thought well maybe it suits us, I don’t know, but it wasn’t a bad place, but we never got a lot of coal for our winter when we stayed there for winter, so we had to end, we end up robbing, doing a little bit of getting some from somewhere else. So the WAAFs were fairly close, but their coal was behind big wire cages, so one winter we was in this winter there and I said well we’ve got to get some more coal lads, we’ve got no coal, flippin’ freezing in here, we been freezin’ all day out in the snow and that so we decided to do a recce and a raid, so we went out about five of us, and we went out and we were creeping in the dark, behind the WAAF huts. I climbed over first, climbed over the wire fence and kept sorting out the small enough bits of coal that I could throw over the wire, ‘cause they were a bit heavy, I’m not a weightlifter. So course we did it, and we got enough coal to go back, when I climbed back over, to last us for about a fortnight. So there we were, happy as pi – as hell. The next time we decided, there was a corporal, a corporal fitter, his name was Corporal Chatterjee. Now he was an Indian unfortunately, for us, but he liked it in our billet so he stayed, and he picked a bed near the fire which annoyed some of us, right, so we was, had to have another raid so I said to the corporal, ‘we’re going to get some more coal.’ ‘Good.’ he said, I says, ‘and you’re coming with us. So he said, ‘I can’t, I’m not coming I can’t do that, I can’t come and start stealing.’ I said, ‘if you want to warm yourself up mate, you’re coming with us or you’ll make things very awkward.’ So anyway we decided that he was going to come, and he certainly had to come, he gotta come or else. Anyway, we was finished going out, in the dark, and it had been snowing hard all day and the WAAFs had slit trenches outside their huts and course the snow had blown and filled the slit trenches up, so we didn’t know where the slit trenches were, you where they were. So away we went, once again I hiked over the fence, started throwing the coal and we got enough coal out over the other side, then we picked it all up, put it on our shoulders, walked it back through the camp and all of a sudden one of the WAAFs for some reason or other, because the lights was on in the hut, she opened the door, out the back, opened this door, lights shot out the door and silhouetted the corporal and me with these flippin’ great lumps of coal on our shoulder and she let out one horrific scream. Well the corporal started to run, not following the footsteps that we took going and went straight down the flippin’ slit trench, dropped the lump of coal, didn’t know what to do, he’s screamin’ his head off down the slit trench, cause it came up just to his armpits and he’s screaming out: ‘get me out of here, get me out of here!’ So I said, ‘hold on a minute, no, no, no, no. Give us the coal first.’ ‘No, no coal, no coal.’ So I said, ‘we want the coal first or you don’t get out. Get out yourself,’ so otherwise they’ll know that we been and pinched the coal. So anyway, eventually he give us the coal, I picked it up, we yanked him out and away we went back, he says, ‘no more, me no more do that, no.’ But that was a funny thing that night. Anyway, stop that one, that’s it. Next time we wanted some coal, we asked one of the chaps that, we was getting a bit low over the WAAFs quarters so we decided to raid the officer’s quarters. So the officers quarters was up on a bit of a hill and we decided to go there [unclear] we thought we’d take, ask the chap going on leave that used to drive, one of the – what was it – one of the Crossley, one of the lorries that used to tow the gliders, it was a Crossley, had no, nothing on the back only the tow bar, and it used to have a big galvanised tank in, on the back with concrete in it to hold the weight down, keep the back of the Crossley. Right, so this time we’re gonna go with this. Can we borrow your Crossley? He said ‘I’m going home on leave for the weekend, do what you like,’ he said, ‘but don’t mess about with it,’ he says, So I said we’re just going to get some coal. So away we went. There was the driver, was the Scotsman, and myself and somebody else sitting in the Crossley in the front, and away we went. We went round there, found the coal, got into position, got as much coal that we could get that night in there, and we’re driving this chap used to drive the oil bowsers driving the Crossley, he’s driving back. Well as we come away from the officer’s quarters goes down a hill swung round sharply to the right, there was a tree on the left hand side with a branch had come about three feet off the floor, off the floor and went across towards the road. Well, the Crossley’s quite wide and he’s driving this thing down there and he’s hit the corner of the cab on the near side, corner of the cab, lifted the cab up nearly off the chassis and smashed the, smashed the window, the windscreen. Anyway, we carried on going, we got back to the camp, we emptied the coal, emptied the coal, went and saw the chap who’s nearly ready to go out of the camp on leave, he’s dressed now, and said ‘ere we’ve damaged your lorry. ‘If you don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘go and get rid of it, I don’t know nothing about it.’ So anyway, they got a bike, put a bike on the back, drove the motor over round the other side of the camp, parked it, and then, somewhere, rode back on his bike, and then turned round and didn’t say a word. When the chap come back off leave, looked round says me bike’s not, me motor’s not in the MT, MOT, MT, somebody’s taken it out of the MT. So he went up before the sergeant, and the sergeant said, ‘your motor wasn’t signed in.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘well I’m sure I did, I certainly took it in,’ he said, ‘I might have walked out and forgot to sign it in.’ Anyway the sergeant, it was damaged, it’s smashed. Anyway they had a court, not a court martial, they had an inquiry into it, and it finished up they said that he didn’t sign it in, they couldn’t find any record so he’s guilty and he got seven days jankers and a seventy pound fine. Now, he used to, he used to run bets on the camp so he wasn’t worried about the fine, that’s all right said he was just upset about the jankers! Where the Scotch bloke that done the job, he got caught, you know, they found him and he got five days in the cookhouse. [laughter] He said I wouldn’t have minded if I’d got the fee he says cause I had the money to pay for it! And then we had sailors on our camp to help us out and this chap that was, used to sleep next to me. Well I went, he went on leave and I was going out one night, when he went on leave, and when I looked for my shoes, I couldn’t find me shoes, I only could find me boots, two pair boots, I had pair shoes, and I looked searched everywhere tipped every place upside down. Anyway, it finished up, his kit bag was next door to me. So I looked in the kit bag and there they were in his kit bag. So I went to the MPs, and I says look, my shoes are gone. I said ‘I believe,’ I said ‘I believe,’ I didn’t say I know, said ‘I believe that this chap has gone home on leave, he was an electrician, he went home but I believe he might have gone home wearing my shoes.’ So they said all right we’ll send a couple of our MPs round. Tipped his kit out and there’s my shoes, they yours, I says yeah, they’re my shoes so I said, so he said put it all back and when he come back we’ll have him. So he turned round, he got away with it, because he turned round said he didn’t know they was in there, someone must have put them in there and that was it. We was at the camp one day, at Dunmow during the day about four o’clock, and all of a sudden there was a tannoy message: “All personnel report, 620 Squadron report to the, report to their aircraft immediately.” So we all went down there, my one was well out the way, my one was AA, was at the front. The bomb dump was down where, when we got there BANG! Thought what’s that, you know, then there was another bang, a bang went up, as it went up this one exploded in the air. The bomb dump was alight, yeah, the bomb dump was alight. So we had to get down to the bomb dump as quickly as possible and get the aircraft out the way because there was the, there was the stock, so we all raced as fast as we could to where the bomb dump was. I got into one aircraft, cause there was no one there at the time. I got in there, started the engine up on the internal batteries, started the engines up and the four engines was running and by that time the pilot came to the aircraft and he, I got out and he taxied it across to the middle, middle of the airfield out the way. In the meantime these flippin’ bombs were going off! So of course I went back, after that I rode me bike back to my dispersal to wait and see what else had happened and the fire engine from Dunmow, ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling, come flying round the corner, came on to the airfield, on to the perimeter track, drove round, got as far as my aeroplane, stopped, got off the fire engine, and they’re looking, and they’re going boom, boom, these bombs are going off and incendiaries are flying all over the place, all of a sudden I suppose they thought got to go and sort this out if we can and they took off and went down there. I don’t remember much about it after that, you know. We just went and sat in the flight office, was down in, down a hollow, that was what we had to do. Time I was on night duty on night flying, I was, my turn to see the aircraft off, me and the rigger. So we went, you know, got go down there. I used to have a Claud Butler bike, a racing bike and of a night time I, if I had time off, I used to put me shorts on, go climb over the fence with me Claud Butler bike which I could lift up, light, and go for a ride round the country lane and that was me, that was a bit of my pleasure. Well this night, this day, I go, I thought, the hopper bikes were heavy, so I got me Claud Butler, got it out, got on to it and pedalled going down to the aircraft. Get out to the aircraft, course as I said my perimeter track went round, and as it went round, it went down to my first one, was there, so I’m going round, and I’m going, now Claud Butler was racing bike had one break, fixed wheel, one brake and a nipple on the end of the brake cable, so I comes flying down and when I got to, saw it on the aerodrome, there, saw it, the four engines was turning over. Well I’m, now I’m the engine mechanic, so evidently some, you know, the flight engineer probably, the skipper said start it up and the rigger, because this time I’m bike, cycling like mad, I’ve swung into the put me front brake on and the nipple on the cable broke and I’m going, I went straight underneath the props on the starboard side, straight under the props, and nearly hit the tail plane that sticks out the back, there at the back, and everybody sort of looking up and sort of saying bloody hell, good job it wasn’t a Halifax. Talking about my Claud Butler, I was on duty crew another night in the Control Tower and I was it was our turn to look after any aircraft that was coming in, you know, or what, we’re sitting in there, in the Control Tower, nothing happening, and all talking there and all of a sudden we had a call: there was some Halifaxes that couldn’t land at their own base so they were being diverted to us. So the flight control came down, says right, we need somebody at the far corner of the second runway, we shall bring the aircraft on behind the follow me car, behind on the perimeter track, that person on the end there will turn the aircraft down on to the spare runway. We want another person at the end of the spare runway, not too close to the main runway that’s being used and stop the aircraft there and park ‘em one after the other so you know, you had time to come round and do it. So of course I went, I said I’ll go to the end of the runway, send ‘em down. My mate says I’ll park them. So I said right and away we did it. So I rode me Claud Butler round, got the end of the runway, we parked my bike on the end, on the far side of the runway because the aircraft are turning just before it, and I stood there and said right, once I’ve stopped them, turn the aircraft with torches and then went like this and he could see the one up the end of the runway and he’ll follow them. I come to the last, I come to the last aircraft and as fast as I walk backwards, he followed me, so I turned this torch, turning me right hand torch as hard as I could so that he’ll turn round: still following me, so I thought he’s not going to do it. So I stopped him, walked over to the fuselage, bangs on the back door, somebody came and answers me at the back door, he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ So I said: ‘The problem is, the pilot is not turning to starboard, he’s got to turn now, lock his starboard wheel and rev his prop to get round otherwise he’ll miss going down the runway, right you got that?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Right.’ I walk back to where I was, I was standing there like a twit and the pilot signalled to me forward so that one’s solid, this one this way, you know. He started to turn, started to turn, eventually he come round and he turned, eventually he comes round and turned and I’ve gone like that and away he’s gone. The follow me motor was behind and he said you want a lift back to the control tower? So I said no I says that’s all right I’ve got me bike here, I’ll ride over. Went over to pick me bike up and the flippin’ aircraft had run over it, he’d run right over the bike solidly and even clipped the pedals. It’s a wonder it didn’t burst his tyre! Yeah, he squashed it completely, useless, frame, wheels, buckled, the lot! So I had to pick the bike up, walk back, walk about what, three quarters of a bloody mile it is, ever so sorry, the other side of the runway, and when I got back there, so no good telling anybody as I shouldn’t have had the bike on the runway. So I had to dump that, and that was the end of my bike and my pleasure. We were all standing on the end of the runway one day, on the side and just watching things, aircraft taking off, one after the other, or whatever, and all of a sudden, this by the way is, we have changed from Stirlings now to Halifaxes, very careful. So we’re standing out there, this Halifax starts to take off and all of a sudden he got to the end of the runway and we kept wondering whether he’s going to stop or he’s going to go. Eventually he went, he just took off the floor, went across the runway, went across the runway, over the hedges and then bomb, ploughed straight into the field. We all ran over there see what had happened, didn’t caught fire or anything, went over there see what happened, the pilot’s, all got out, all standing around, pilot’s standing outside of his cockpit, on the wing, standing there, you know, and as we got over there we said to him ‘what’s wrong, what happened?’ ‘Oh!’ he said, the flippin’ ailerons locked on me,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t turn the ailerons he said to take off.’ So, anyway, within that time the engineering officer was turned up in his motor, he came up, walked across, got on, climbed up on the wing, ‘cause by now that’s on the floor, climbed up on the wing, looked into the cockpit and the I’ve never heard an officer swear so much in all me life! He turned round and he said what happened to the bloke, pilot says, ‘the ailerons locked.’ He said, ‘I would think so, they are locked!’ so the pilot said ‘what?’ ‘They are locked.’ What had happened was, on the aileron locks which clip either side of the steering wheel so to speak, on the, I say there should have been a piece of metal painted red and it was hinged on to the aileron lock to stop them going like that, wind blowing them and this piece of rod supposed to go on a seat to stop the pilot sitting on the seat. He supposed to take that, undo this one and that, and take it off, give it to the flight engineer and stow it in the stowing box that was, in a bag, but they were on the [unclear] and this piece was missing. And you know when I said, that whatshisname was in that magazine didn’t they, that was in that magazine so the pilot really [unclear]. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know if he got away with it, I suppose he did really, cause it wasn’t his fault, it was [emphasis] his fault, well it was the engineer’s fault ‘cause the engineer should have should have accepted it, put it in the stowage bag. I’ve already told you where I used to help ‘em out. I’ll tell you a quick one Dunmow, not a nice, not a nice thing this. I used to catch rabbits. What meat was naturally short during the war so naturally if I could get, take home any rabbits or anything like that for my mum, family to eat I would do so, I wasn’t living far from London so wasn’t a problem. So the Americans that were stationed at Dunmow lost a lot of aircraft, there was a great big heap of smashed up Marauders, and every Marauder had an aerial, stainless steel aerial, so that it was made of nice bond wire, so I went round and cut most, a lot of them off. What I did, I made some snares. I made these snares and put them around where these aircraft were damaged because I could see a lot of rabbit runs in there, and see little piles of poo, so I did this, I used to catch quite a few. And if I wasn’t going home I would give them to other men to take home for their parents to eat. So one morning I went round to see if I’d any rabbits in me snares. I come along and all of a sudden I could see in the distance, I thought what’s that, I said the next thing I saw was this dog. It was a grey dog, with, it looked like a Welsh terrier, little curl, grey curly hair. When I got close to him, I said he looked at me, he caught this snare, foot in the snare, and he looked at me and he wagged his tail and I thought well that’s good, he’s a little bit friendly. But he hadn’t been caught for long because he wasn’t rushing around or well, he was just sort of stood there like that, if to say I’m caught, you know. So anyway I approached him, and he was approachable, I just slipped it undone, and when I took his paw out, he just run around as though nothing had happened, he wasn’t hurt at all so I thought well that was brilliant, so anyway it finished up that the armourers, evidently he was lost, the armourers on the site, 620, they took him under their wing and he used to be their dog for all the time they was at Dunmow. But we used to take, take the windscreens out of these aircraft cause they was perfect Perspex. We used to cut them into little hearts, and fire ‘em, we used to cut the crown and the wings out of the button, put ‘em on there, put the hot heat on to it, and that used to melt into it, put a little loop on the end of it and buy a little chain, you know, not gold chain, I couldn’t afford that, but a chain and give it to girlfriend or somebody you met at the dance, you know. They used to like ’em. They used to make all sorts of brooches. Sometimes they used to find a cannon shell that was in all the rubbish, find a cannon shell. They, what they used to do then, used go in the site hut what we used to have was a vice what we used if we have to, you put the shell in the vice, wiggle it a little bit to make it loose, pull the bullet out or the shell out and then tip out all the cordite or whatever was inside, put the cartridge case back in the shell, get a piece, a little bit of wood and a hammer, put it on the end of the firer, give it a hit, fire it off so it made it safe and then we used to make a lighter out of them. That’s it. We used to have one rigger that used to be a very lazy person, and that rigger annoyed me because he was an elderly man, and how he ever passed A1 I shall never know. He used to cut mens’ hair for six p, you know, and I never let him cut my hair I wouldn’t do it if it was tuppence. Because, see he used to annoy me very much, he used to go on the site – he hasn’t got his bowl - the dispersal and he used to walk down the steps used to lead down the bank to the hut at the bottom and come in there and he’d sit, always was a fire if it was cold because they used to be, keep it during the night when they was, keep it alight night and day because you sleep there, wait for the aircraft to come back. Well anyway, this, this morning, he came up and he turned round, and he said, ‘Ah,’ he said ‘bloody hell it’s cold out there, innit, bloody, just come back, bloomin’ cold I don’t fancy going out there.’ I said and because it was warm inside the windows’d steam up, I said, he’s over, greatcoat on, I said he’d wipe his cuff on his hands on his greatcoat and he’d look out the window, he’d say, ‘ah well, airplane’s still there,’ open the Form 700 and sign his signature to say he’d done his DI to his signature. Now that annoyed me, I was always very, very conscientious, you know, people’s lives and that, anyway he’s said oh well that was it and sign it. So of course I went back out the aircraft and there were talking with a couple of me mates out there, we’ve got to teach this bugger a lesson, I said I know what we’ll do, so I went into the aircraft, I got one of the very pistol cartridges. I opened it up, I’m not quite sure of the colour: green, red, blue, or whatever it was, it used to be [unclear] emptied them out, I banged the cartridge on the end like to stop it explode off so it was safe, took these things, took ‘em down to there, I got a brick, a block or something, the old fire was burning merrily there, we got a lump of rope, tied it round the door ‘andle and tied it to something was outside, I can’t think what it was now, we tied it up anyway so he couldn’t open the door, and there’s only one door and we climbed up on to the top of the – what’s the name – on the nissen hut, cause you can, you could walk up ‘em. We used to have rubber soled boots on the aircraft, we used to walk up there, although it might be bit dodgy, and I got the pellets, dropped these pellets down the flue and put the brick on the top. Well! The colours that came out the top of the flue, where it’s coming out, shooting out all different colours, smoke, filled up the place, he’s screaming his head off in there. We had to let him out because the place got so full of smoke. Terrible it was, yeah. But he wasn’t a very happy bunny, yeah. [Laughter] One more, Sue, one more, right. We was in the NAAFI, used to be the NAAFI, Sally Ann it was, Sally Ann used to come round the dispersal and used park out underneath the wings of the two aircraft at the dispersal where the flight office was and see they used to open it up and sell the old tea and buns. We was there one day and the tanker driver pulled up under the wing, pulled up under the wing of the aircraft there, sitting there, talking, they was all talking round, eating and drinking and all of a sudden is that a flame in your cab? And he looked, he run round, he opened the door and somehow there was a flame in there, whether it come in from the engine or not we don’t know. So of course everybody’s running round like, there’s two thousand gallon tanker underneath the aircraft, so anyway, one of them went, we got fire, only a few fire extinguishers, we got it there, of course they got these fire extinguishers and one’s firing it through one door, and the other one firing through the other door and they’re getting smothered in foam! You know, anyway, it didn’t take long, I don’t know what it was, but it didn’t take long, whatever it was, it went out with the two fire extinguishers. All of a sudden, because it was an emergency they rang the fire brigade at our station, so of course they came flying round the corner, yeah, and the tanker driver got his tanker out just in case it sparked off again, backed it out away from the aircraft and these firemen on the cab, come flying round, jump off the fire engine, grabbed hold of some axes and went round, one opened the door, the other one opened the other door and two of them smashed in the front windscreen, ahhh, sorry, craaaash! Crash, windscreen. The tanker driver says, standing there he said, ‘what you do that for?‘ He said ‘well there’s a fire in the cab.’ He said ‘bloomin’ well we’d already put the fire out! What you do that for?’ Talk about cases caught, that’s it. First of all my overseas trip. The aircraft, the sixth airborne was going to Palestine to quell the vision, the trouble between the Jewish rebels, outburst, call them rebels because that’s what they were. As far as I’m concerned I’m very annoyed because when the Polish war was, when the war was started it was the Polish Jews and everything on that, I know Hitlers’ condemned the Jews, done all this against the Jews, here we are out there, it wasn’t the Jewish population’s place or the Arabs, it was split between them at the time and it was going all right. Somebody said that it belonged to the Jews and the Jews started to, causing trouble, and people were getting shot and injured by the Jewish population, that was the bit that got me. So I wasn’t very happy, against them, I’m not against the Jewish population, but I’m against them attacking us, which helped them as best we could and lost a lot of lives doing it. Right, getting back to this one then. We sailed out of, went first of all climbed on the trains and we went up to Liverpool, right, we thought well that’s it. So we was there at Liverpool, we was there for just before Christmas and they sent us home on leave for two days at Christmas. We’re back all the way up there, then they decided they weren’t going to let us sail from there, we’re going to sail from Southampton, so we’re all the way back to Southampton and we caught the Capetown Castle. Now the Capetown Castle was a beautiful [unclear] it was a Castle Line boat, and it was beautiful, it held the Blue Riband for the crossing to South Africa and England, so no, no never had an escort of any sort, mind you it didn’t need it at the time, but it never did have an escort during the war when it made journeys because it was too fast for submarines, they couldn’t catch it, so they didn’t need escort. Right, so we went over there and ended at Port Said. Landed at Port Said and we got off there, marched along the ruddy railway track looking for the passenger train. What passenger train? No passenger train. Cattle trucks! So we had cattle trucks, so we all had to climb on board cattle trucks, put our gear on the cattle trucks, and sit there with the doors open with your legs hanging out the door. Well I remember my dad telling me this about the wogs they’re right rogues and that, I had a cigarette, so I’d just lit this cigarette, and it was just lit so it was a whole cigarette more or less, and one of these chaps came along in his night shirt, turned round and looked at me, leant up towards me cause I’m sitting higher than him on and with me feet out the train, and he turned round, and he wanted me to light his cigarette, so he give a little tug, give a little tug on my cigarette wanted to sort of take it, making out it was too hard to light his cigarette so I let my cigarette go like a fool and off the rat he ran with my cigarette and I thought, oh Bill you’ve arrived. That’s that one. One of our things we had to do, when you have a kit bag you have a kit bag lock and if anybody knows a kitbag lock is a piece of brass or whatever, a straight piece of metal on a hinge and one piece that looped over, which you hole, put it one through the other and padlock it. Well, of a night time, we used to have to padlock our rifles or our guns or whatever we had, to the bed, through the springs of the bed, and put it through the trigger guard and then padlock it, so that nobody sort of blow in your face if you like, make you roll over and take your gun from underneath yer. So that was a bit of a bind because it was a bit of a bind because personally when I went on board the boat I had a sten gun. When I got off the boat I had a rifle. So there I am with sten gun pouches, with sten gun ammunition in it and when I got off the boat I got a rifle with no nothing, no ammunition whatsoever, no spare whatsisname. Anyway so they took, the first couple of days they took ‘em all, everything off us, but then again they handed them back to us, I still got a flippin’ rifle. Anyway, I used to, when we went on guard, and we used to have to go on guard, the only problem with the RAF, I found from the beginning, and the only bones I had to pick with them was, if you was on a squadron you was a lodger, when you went on a main station, all the people that was lodgers, the squadrons, they had to do all the guard duties, all the fire picquets, all the rough and tumble but when it come to night flying we had to do that as well. We had to do night flying, we had to do duty crew, things like that, there wasn’t a lot. Now I was against that all the time, that was my bugbear with the RAF. Right, now when we come to the RAF station, we come to there, we used to have to go on lorries from the main camp out to the dispersals and what they used to have was a thirty hundredweight lorry, a few seats in the back of that and behind that was towed a trailer and it was like the trailers you see the Germans carted round and the trailers sitting in the back with the seats running side to side and people sitting there with their guns in the middle. So we used to have to go out and that was, but then put your gun somewhere and start doing your work during the day. That the toilets, now there was something you’d never heard of far as I’m concerned. They were built of brick, they were built of brick, they had some sort of an L shaped sort of urinal wall, with the urinals on the side, you walk in, walk past that and you go in and round the centre of the thing, was a centre wall built with seats the same height as you would normally get it, but between them was set, going towards the centre with a, a pipe comes up and through the middle which vented it below, below and when you went to sit in there, there was a piece of timber used to come down on top of ‘em. When you wanted to go to the toilet you used to have to pick up this seat have one hand behind your back to hold it up. And when you get up it automatic flop down, to stop the flies. But it doesn’t stop the flies. Nothing stops the flies. So anyway one night I went round in to the toilet, my dad, you know was telling me bits about different things, and I’m in the loo and I’m sitting there, thinking of England and all of a sudden, I had an American torch at that time it was an UA, American military torch, and it was one that stood up, and it had a clip on the side and the light faced horizontally at the top, very bright, a lovely light and I used to take this torch out, put it on the seat side, and it used to, sorry, it used to shine up on the white wall and light the place up a bit, so not only I got the benefit, so did other people. Anyway, I’m sitting there one night, and it wasn’t long, I think it was about fourth or fifth day I was out there, I was sitting there, no one else in the bloomin’ place, all of a sudden sominck went past me quick [whooshing sound] oh some twit had dressed a sheet over him and run past, run round, round the toilet, run round, anyway it made me jump. I jumped up, the seat automatically flaps down, hits me torch, lost me torch down the toilet, gone down the pit. I’m now in darkness, what’s that in darkness, oh dear, so I lifted the seat up quick and I could see me bloody torch shining down the toilet! I wasn’t half fuming I was, I didn’t half give everybody a row, what you talking about, I don’t know about it, you know, that was it. That was that one. We was, we used to have to do a guard at one time, when it finished the Arab Legion took it over. When that happened that was fine, because sometimes if you was on guard they used to have a wire, a thing where they used to go into the dispersal, the aircraft were parked, they used to have wire going across, barrier and you lift it backwards and forwards. Well if you was on guard you used to have to stand there, well when they used to come and empty these flippin’ toilets, they used to, I’m not going to say how they used to empty it, but they used to, and the cart they used to pour it in to take it away used to dry, used to dry, and shrink, the timbers used to shrink, anyway, it didn’t leak, wasn’t a metal one or anything, one nothing plastic or anything, so it used to be, when it used to stop there, for them to lift the barrier, and we then shut the barrier, pfff, that whatever used to drop out of there it used to smell bloody horrible. Anyway that was that one. That was nasty. The little, another of my quickies. We used to have a little wog, we used to have water bowsers and they used to have taps along the back. Now they used to have big wasps, like, looked like bloomin’ hornets, big black, brown and black, white and yellow ones and they used to go up the tap, when you went out for [unclear] like that, bloody thing would come down the tap wash your mouth round so you had to be careful. But what the little, we used to call them, what the little wogs used to do, because they used to come on to the and sell you oranges and things like that, or scrounge what they can, and he used to come on and what they used to do, they used to get a matchbox, and they take their skull caps off - oh I’m sorry I’ll have to stop this - they used to grab their skull caps, grab these waspy things, get a matchstick, squash their bottoms out, take out the sting, but we didn’t know that, put them in these matchboxes, and then when it was tea time, or tea breaks, they used to come in, go in the middle of the room, and stand there talking and they’d see these wogs and that they used to undo these match boxes and throw ‘em on the floor. Cor! Can you imagine! Everybody used to run out of there, pick up all their buns and run out of there. Yeah. So that’s what they used to do. That was terrible. I went to Benghazi, when an aircraft landed there because burst it’s tail wheel, I went there to fix an engine, because it only done the tail wheel, somebody slung his sten gun over his shoulder when he was on guard and the bullet, block came down, took one up the spout, went through the aileron so we didn’t know whether it had damaged anything inside the aileron, so we had to send back an aircraft to Palestine for a new aileron. There’s that one. Cairo West, Cairo West we had, I told you about the lady, girls in the swimming pool, I, one minute I’ll get meself sorted in a minute. So I adopted a dog at Cairo West, it was a white, white alsatian, he was a beauty, brown nose, big white, big white, creamy white tail and everything. But he was, had got loads and loads of ticks. So what I had to do I had to go to get some petrol out the aircraft, put it in a can, used to go back up there, and I used to get hold of him, put him between me legs, and I used to get a matchstick, dip it in the petrol, touch the back of the whatsisname and it used to unscrew its neck and drop on the floor and I had to get them out of his ears, and off him wherever I found one, I got one, god rid and lovely. I had him for about two three months and someone come in and said the South Africans have just run over your dog. They used to have a little South African squad on the camp and they’d gone out on the beer that night and come back and they’d run over, went out looking for him and found him, and he was runover him, shame wasn’t it. That was that one. What was the other one? Sandstorm. We had a sandstorm, at, in Cairo West, blew all our tents down, blew our tents down, [laughter] that was a right do that was. Went to Iraq, Habanya, and then on to, oh, can’t think of the other one, Hibanya and the other one, can’t think of it. Went to Nicosia, we took, we used to take boats over to Nicosia, and we used to go over there to service the aircraft, while it was over there for a couple of days and they used to come back and we used to do that regular before leave, you know, you could come home. And that was that one. Well, I don’t think I can, there is others, there’s lots of others bits and pieces that I think’d make you laugh, but I think I’ve said enough. Well I was demobbed in Heliopolis, caught the bus, caught a tram [laugh], caught a boat for going home, it’s called the Duncott Castle. Now that was on the Medlock trip. Now on the Medlock trip they used to go from Mediterranean which was Port Said to Greece, Piraeus and then back again, do that trip then they used to catch a train right through Europe. Except for this time they was told, the crew was told that they was going home to England, but they didn’t, they came back to pick us up, right. So a lot of the crew jumped ship, says right, no, we ain’t going to do it, we’re going home, wo they went home. So when the boat got to Egypt, when we were on board they any RAF personnel is interested in being the ship’s crew, like to come to the ship’s Orderly Room we will sort a job out for them. So the electricians went in to the electricians, engineers were whatever wherever, I said well and my mate, come on let’s go, got be good. So of course we went there and when we got there we were made waiters, stewards, made stewards, looking after the senior NCOs and WAAFs, in there, and they were on board ship, they used to get special, waited, others used to have to queue up. Anyway, so that was it, so we went there. When we got there we used to say how do we wash in the morning, can’t get washed, oh use the crew, you’re crew now. We didn’t, when it was deck drill we used to be ‘we’re crew not RAF’, and when we were crew we are RAF, anyway we done all right out of that cause we used to, sugar was on the table, and we used to keep filling up bags of sugar, putting in the boot, we come back with sugar, tea, coffee you name it, plus the fact you used to have egg and bacon as much as you want in the morning, we did all right. We used to, we didn’t have to but went up in to the crew’s quarters to have a wash and shower, where the other blokes didn’t have any. Decent toilets sit on a what they say sit on a thing, water used to run through like that, sometimes somebody would light a bit of paper, put it in the water while we’re sitting there! Anyway that was that. Right. Now, when they, we finally came home, we found we got paid for it as well, they had to pay us, they had to pay us. We went to the, this, what they call it. I finally got demobbed at Preston. I said to the, it was, 1947 Winter, 6, 47 winter, February, beginning of February I think it was and I went to, I said to them right, they said throw your greatcoats over there, I said hold on I said, I think we can buy our greatcoats, I said I think I’ll buy mine I ain’t going out in that in just a mac and a suit, you know. So he said throw your greatcoats over there, so I said can’t we do it? No. They refused to let us buy our greatcoats, so we had to go home in the flippin’ whatsisname, freezing cold. Anyway the next thing I knew I tried for a job, tried for different jobs. I tried for a job in the gas company, cause I didn’t want to go in the building trade ever, tried for a job in the gas company, in the turbine house. I kept falling asleep, cause we did the night time, you know, and you couldn’t fall asleep cause there used to be a water tank used to have to keep filling up to keep the turbine working, the turbine an I keep falling asleep. I’m packing it in, I can’t have this. So I packed it in, that’s what I thought. I went down the labour exchange to see if they’d got anything and they said we’ve got a job at Ford’s. So funnily enough they let me pack it in there, so I went to Fords, got a job on the Ford V8 engines. But it’s not what I wanted, I wanted to be in the engineering centre, I wanted to be in the machine shop, want to be in the machine shop, says yes, okay, got the job, went there. Next thing I know I’m being traipsed along to a bloody whatsname line, Ford V8 assembly line, putting pistons in the piston block, and that was everything I don’t want take day. I see you ever see Charlie Chaplin in Modern Time, well I was in there like that, I shut me eyes go to sleep and I could see it, you know, monorail. Anyway, I finally finished up, I did leave. I said machines were made to help man and not make him a slave, I’m out of here and you can do what you like. Well anyway, he didn’t take any notice and I finally went back in the building trade and I stayed in that until I retired.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with William Joseph Longhurst
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Denise Boneham
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ALonghurstWJ180407
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:35:34 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Cyprus
Egypt
Great Britain
Libya
North Africa
Cyprus--Nicosia
Egypt--Cairo
Egypt--Port Said
England--Bedfordshire
England--Essex
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Surrey
Libya--Banghāzī
Description
An account of the resource
William Longhurst served as an engine mechanic through the Second World War. He was a member of the Hackney Wick Air Defence Cadet Corps before volunteering to enlist in the RAF after his seventeenth birthday. Following basic training at Skegness, technical training was undertaken at RAF Filton. Initially working on Blenheim aircfraft, William went on to gain experience on both Stirlings and Halifax’s. He provides a colourful account of his experiences throughout his service career, which ended when he was demobilised in the Middle East in 1947.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1947
620 Squadron
B-17
Blenheim
fuelling
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
mechanics engine
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-51
perimeter track
RAF Cardington
RAF Filton
runway
Stirling
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/490/27465/LMillarJ1893458v10001.2.pdf
e352f9e02b4c620fe44613b7e6486819
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Chinery, Donald
Donald Robert Chinery
D R Chinery
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Chinery, DR
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Donald Chinery (1921 - 2017, 1465877 Royal Air Force) his log book, and the log book of J Millar. Donald Chinery flew operations as an air gunner with 61 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Pam Winter and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
J Millar’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for J Millar, air gunner, covering the period from 29 July 1943 to 27 June 1944. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Pembrey, RAF Newmarket, RAF Stradishall, RAF Leicester East, RAF Coningsby and RAF Skellingthorpe. Aircraft flown in were Blenheim, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. Having initially joined 620 Squadron he flew a total of 35 night operations with 61 Squadron. Targets were Chateauroux, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Berlin, Essen, Nuremberg, Tours, Aachen, Paris, Brunswick, Munich, Schweinfurt, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Mailly-Le-Camp, Eindhoven, Nantes, Saumur, Ferme D’Urville, Pierre du Mont, Argentan, Rennes, Orleans, Poitiers, Aunay, Watten, Gelsenkirchen, Limoges, Rouville and Vitry. His pilot on operations was Pilot Officer Auckland. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMillarJ1893458v10001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
France--Argentan
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Caen Region
France--Châteauroux
France--Limoges
France--Nantes
France--Orléans
France--Paris
France--Poitiers
France--Rennes
France--Saumur
France--Saint-Pierre-du-Mont (Landes)
France--Toulouse
France--Tours
France--Troyes
France--Valognes Region
France--Vitry-sur-Seine
France--Watten
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Wales--Carmarthenshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Bolbec
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-03-10
1944-03-11
1944-03-16
1944-03-17
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-28
1944-04-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-02
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-19
1944-05-20
1944-05-22
1944-05-23
1944-05-24
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-03
1944-06-04
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-19
1944-06-21
1944-06-22
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-25
1944-06-27
1944-06-28
1657 HCU
61 Squadron
620 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
bombing of the Pas de Calais V-1 sites (24/25 June 1944)
bombing of the Watten V-2 site (19 June 1944)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Me 109
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Coningsby
RAF Leicester East
RAF Newmarket
RAF Pembrey
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stradishall
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1607/24382/PWatsonJB15010023.1.jpg
7365bd3cf0814581204837fac4b0fcbf
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Watson, Joan. Watson, K. Album
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-25
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Watson, JR
Description
An account of the resource
28 items.
Covering K Watson’s service from training onwards and in Bomber Command and then Coastal Command. Includes sketch maps and mementos.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
K Watson's RAF Service
Description
An account of the resource
A hand-drawn graphic on an album page with K Watson's RAF Service detailed. It includes the dates and where he served.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
K Watson
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One hand-drawn graphic on an album page.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWatsonJB15010023
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Devon
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lancashire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Glamorgan
44 Squadron
620 Squadron
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
RAF Chivenor
RAF Fairford
RAF Lindholme
RAF Padgate
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Athan
RAF St Eval
RAF Witchford
RAF Wyton
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/536/24402/LWatsonK1589906v1.2.pdf
4819eef3a0b8270b7576fef405c5323a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Watson, Joan
J Watson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Watson, JB
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joan Watson.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-04
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
K Watson’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book. One
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Flight Sergeant K. Watson’s RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, from 5th October 1943 to 23rd December 1953, detailing training and operations as a Flight Engineer. Also includes post-war duties with Coastal Command. He was stationed at RAF Woolfox Lodge (1665 Heavy Conversion Unit), RAF Witchford (513 Squadron), RAF Leicester East, RAF Fairford and Great Dunmow (620 Squadron), RAF Lindholme (230 OCU), RAF Wyton (44 Squadron), RAF Leuchars and Kinloss (120 Squadron) and RAF Gibraltar (224 Squadron). Aircraft in which flown: Stirling I, Stirling III, Stirling IV, Lancaster, Lincoln and Shackleton. He flew a total of 31 operations (4 day, 27 night) with 620 Squadron in France, the Netherlands and Norway. Most are logged simply as 'Special Duties', and consist mainly of airborne operations such as glider towing, paratoop dropping and resupply operations. On June 5-6th 1944 he records participation in operations Tonga and Mallard, part of the D-day Normandy landings. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Gawith.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWatsonK1589906v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Gibraltar
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Essex
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Rutland
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Fife
Scotland--Moray
Netherlands
Norway
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-05-08
1944-05-31
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-20
1944-08-21
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-28
1944-08-31
1944-09-01
1944-09-09
1944-09-10
1944-09-13
1944-09-14
1944-09-17
1944-09-18
1944-09-19
1944-09-21
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-12-30
1945-01-21
1945-01-22
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-03-02
1945-03-03
1945-03-24
1945-04-11
1945-04-12
1945-04-18
1945-04-20
1945-04-22
1945-05-30
120 Squadron
1665 HCU
44 Squadron
620 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Fairford
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leicester East
RAF Leuchars
RAF Lindholme
RAF Witchford
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Wyton
Shackleton
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1520/31087/E[Author]JacksonCG430623.jpg
8c4e5e785217e3567e0b8da59d40252c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jackson, Roy
R Jackson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Jackson, R
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. The collection concerns Roy Jackson (1098586, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, telegrams, letters and an air gunner's brevet. He flew operations as a an air gunner with 620 Squadron and was killed 23 June 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by S Burn and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Roy Jackson is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/214365/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
R.A.F Sub-Station Chedburgh,
Bury St. Edmunds,
SUFFOLK.
23rd June, 1943.
Dear Mr. Jackson,
I am writing to offer you the sincere sympathy both of myself and the whole Squadron in the anxiety you have experienced since learning that your son Sgt. Jackson is missing from operations.
He was the rear gunner of an aircraft which took off on the night of 22/23rd June, 1943, to operate against the enemy. No message was received from the aircraft and it failed to return. Nothing has since been heard of it or any of the crew.
There is a possibility that your son may have escaped from the aircraft by parachute or in a forced landing in enemy territory, in which case he would be a Prisoner of War and news of that would not reach us perhaps for many weeks. The International Red Cross would be the first to receive any further news and they would pass it immediately to the Air Ministry. The Air Ministry would therefore communicate with you direct, thus avoiding as much delay as possible.
I feel most deeply for you in this anxious time. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. We all join with you in hoping and praying that your son is safe.
Yours very sincerely,
[signature]
Wing Commander, Commanding,
[underlined]No. 620 Sqdn[/underlined]
Mr. C. G. Jackson.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to Roy Jackson's father from OC 620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Offers sympathy over news that his son was missing from operations.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Officer Commanding 620 Squadron
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-23
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page typewritten letter
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
E[Author]JacksonCG430623
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Bury St. Edmunds
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06-23
1943-06-22
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
620 Squadron
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1519/30418/MSladdenD25115087-160623-28.2.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Noel Richard Chaffey
1922 – 2005
[photograph]
Noel Chaffey standing in front of the rear gun turret of a Stirling. He was a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner with 620 Squadron and was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Born in West Tamworth, NSW, in the early hours of October 13th 1922, younger brother of Athol.
Schooled in Tamworth and leaving High School for work in Sydney as an artist on glass with Australian Glass Manufacturers Company.
When old enough I joined the Royal Australian Air Force volunteering for training in Canada with the Commonwealth Training Programme as Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and after 13 months passed out as Flight Sergeant. Ready to join front line forces in England.
Upon arrival first posting was holding centre at Brighton then on to Litchfield, only after two days to find a number of us were posted incorrectly, so on we went to our correct posting at Tilstock and Sleap, Shropshire. Here we were crewed and I got a fellow Aussie for Pilot and the rest were R.A.F. English (6 in all).
We six were to join a Squadron 620, in Second Tactical Air Force, under “Ike” for the remainder of the war. At which time we had completed 34 operational missions, including D-Day, 3 days at Arnhem, and Rhine Crossing – without scratch on either crew or aircraft.
Athol had joined the Gunnery schools of the Army and posted to Darwin to go through attacks by the Japs of heavy bombardments on that city, which was almost wiped out, but he came through with only hearing loss on the heavy AA Battery, of which he was in charge of one of the biggest.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Noel Chaffey biography
Description
An account of the resource
Biography covers Noel Chaffey's RAAF early life, education, training as wireless operator and joining 620 Squadron where he flew 34 operations including D-Day and Arnhem and the Rhine crossing. Includes b/w photograph of a man standing by the rear turret of a bomber.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed document with one b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MSladdenD25115087-160623-28
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Shropshire
France--Normandy
Netherlands--Arnhem
New South Wales
New South Wales--Tamworth
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
620 Squadron
aircrew
crewing up
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
Second Tactical Air Force
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1560/35628/MWestonF126909-161113-01.2.pdf
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Weston, Fred
F Weston
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weston, F
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Fred Weston DFC (1916 - 2012, 126909 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 and 620 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Catherine Millington and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Obituary: Ex Flight Lieutenant Fred Weston DFC
A TROPHY-WINNING marksman, Fred Weston, who has died aged 95, joined the RAF at the outbreak of the War, became a Rear Gunner in Bomber Command and was awarded a DFC.
After the War, he went into Forestry, ending his career as District Forest Officer for Hambleton, and Deer Patrol Advisor for the North of England.
Born in Runcorn, Cheshire, Mr Weston was the eldest of the four sons of William and Ivy Weston.
He got a place at Wade Deacon Grammar School in Widnes where he was a hard-working pupil and excelled at rugby union, continuing to play in later life.
Leaving school, he joined the accounts department of the Mersey Power Company in Runcorn.
He took up shooting and competed at Bisley, winning a number of trophies including a BSA Shooting Trophy, and, in 1938, the Bromley-Davenport Silver Challenge Cup.
On joining Bomber Command at the outbreak of war, and completing a gunnery course, he became a Rear Gunner, initially flying in Whitleys and Blenheims.
In May 1941 he was posted to 101 Squadron, which sustained the heaviest losses in Bomber Command. With 101 he flew in Wellingtons until May 1942, and for the rest of his service in Stirlings.
On July 28, 1942, he had to bale out at low altitude after a mid-air collision with a Wellington as they left Cambridgeshire en route to Hamburg. His violent landing in a tree at Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, caused a back problem from which he suffered for the rest of his life, but that night the remainder of the squadron suffered devastating losses.
From June 1943 he was a Gunnery Leader with 620 Squadron in dangerous missions against heavily-defended targets, including the German battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
In the many crash landings he experienced, he broke his nose at least twice and had his front teeth knocked out.
In June 1943, he received the DFC from George VI in recognition of the tenacity, courage and devotion to duty.
Mr Weston’s last operational flights were during Operation Market Garden at Arnhem in September 1944, and special duties with Transport Group 38 on secret SOE (Secret Operations Executive) missions, dropping supplies to the Resistance Movement and dropping and recovering agents.
He found relief from the stresses of those missions by playing rugby for the RAF and driving fast cars, a Bugatti, Lamborghini, Maserati and Alfa Romeo among them.
When the war ended, he went to Bangor University, played rugby for the university and gained a BSc in Forestry in 1948.
After a year as a Forestry Officer, he moved to Northern Ireland as a Field Officer and eventually as Chief Forest Officer. While there, he met and married Dorothy Barclay.
In 1952 he returned to the Forestry Commission in England as District Forest Officer in South Hampshire, based at Winchester, and in 1964 he moved to Helmsley as District Forest Officer for the vast Hambleton area and Deer Patrol Advisor for the North of England. At one time, he had the overall charge of seven beats and 128 men.
When he was 60, having spent 10 years at the Helmsley Office and two at Pickering, he retired, able now to spend more time fishing and shooting.
Mr Weston knew his own mind, and spoke it – particularly when he considered an injustice was being done. And fiercely independent, he would not be rushed into making a decision. It took two years to persuade him, at the age of 93, to have an Aid Call button.
An out-of-doors man, he did not feel the cold, and thought no-one else did either.
He loved music, particularly Gregorian chants, tango and jazz. He appreciated a good joke, even against himself, particularly if it was in service language and if he had a glass of whisky or a gin and tonic in his hand.
His tough exterior disguised a compassionate nature, testament to which was the very many charities he supported.
His most prized possession was his well-thumbed copy of the New Testament which went with him on every operation.
Mr Weston’s three younger brothers pre-deceased him, and Mrs Weston died 8 years ago. The couple had no children, but he is survived by his cousin, Mrs Sylvia White, his God-Daughter Catherine Millington and his nephews and nieces.
A service for friends and family to celebrate his life was held at 2.45pm at the Chapel at Lister House, Ripon, on Wednesday, May 2.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Obituary - Flight Lieutenant Fred Weston DFC
Description
An account of the resource
A obituary for Fred describing his life before, during and after his wartime service.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Runcorn
England--Hambleton (North Yorkshire)
England--Widnes
England--Bisley (Surrey)
England--Cambridge
Germany--Hamburg
Netherlands--Arnhem
Wales--Bangor
Northern Ireland
England--Winchester
England--Helmsley
England--Pickering
England--Ripon
Germany
Netherlands
Great Britain
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cheshire
England--Hampshire
England--Surrey
England--Yorkshire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWestonF126909-161113-01
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Steve Baldwin
101 Squadron
620 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
Blenheim
Distinguished Flying Cross
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Gneisenau
mid-air collision
Resistance
Scharnhorst
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2363/42436/LGosneyG568331v1.2.pdf
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Gosney, Geoffrey
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Gosney (b. 1919, 568331, 54247 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, service documents, and photographs. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 426, 462 and 428 Squadrons.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Susan Hassell and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-04-18
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Gosney, G
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Geoffrey Gosney. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-07-12
1942-07-13
1942-07-15
1942-07-16
1942-07-24
1942-07-25
1942-07-28
1942-07-29
1942-08-04
1942-08-05
1942-08-09
1942-08-10
1942-08-13
1942-08-14
1942-08-19
1942-08-20
1942-08-23
1942-08-24
1942-08-29
1942-08-30
1942-09-13
1942-09-14
1942-10-07
1942-10-08
1942-10-12
1942-10-21
1942-10-22
1942-10-29
1942-10-30
1942-11-02
1942-11-03
1942-11-05
1942-11-06
1942-11-07
1942-11-08
1942-11-09
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-09-26
1944-09-28
1944-09-29
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-10
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-24
1945-03-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Marsá Maṭrūḥ
Egypt--Halfaya Pass
Egypt--Sallūm
Libya
Libya--Tobruk
Middle East--Palestine
Israel
Israel--Yavneh
France
France--Audinghen
France--Calais
France--Coulonvillers
France--La Pallice
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Goch
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Dorsten
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Greece
Greece--Maleme
France--Cap Gris Nez
Description
An account of the resource
This log book covers the training, operational and post war flying career of Geoffrey Gosney from 2 July 1942 to 12 July 1951. It includes a cartoon of the 426 Squadron crest. Geoffrey flew 31 operations in two tours of duty, 23 of which were night operations with 10, 227, 426, 428 and 462 Squadrons. Targets in Egypt, Libya, France, Germany and Greece were Calais, Cap Gris Nez, Dorsten, Frankfurt, Goch, Hanau, Leverkusen, Maleme, Marsa Matruh, Mönchengladbach, Münster, Rheine, Sallum, Soda Bay, Tobruk and Wanne-Eickel. Pilots in operations were Squadron Leader Goldston, Sergeant Wyatt, Flight Officer McGregor, Flying Officer Kagna, Wing Commander Burgess, Flight Lieutenant Garratt, Flight Officer Brodie, Pilot Officer Fuller, Wing Commander Black and Flight Lieutenant Davies. During March, April and May Geoffrey’s duty in the Halifax VII is described in his log book as ‘’screening”. In 1946/47 he was involved in the transport of troops and the dropping of paratroopers and the transportation of freight and troops in the Middle East. Back in the UK he took part in a formation fly past over Banbury. In February 1948 his duties are again described as “screening’ in the Halifax but now with ‘Flying Wing’ at Fairford. Geoffrey remained in the Royal Air Force and served in Palestine. He took part in the Berlin Airlift, transporting coal to Berlin. Transferred to RAF Hemswell with 97 Squadron.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGosneyG568331v10071
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Lynn Corrigan
10 Squadron
1652 HCU
1664 HCU
227 Squadron
425 Squadron
426 Squadron
428 Squadron
462 Squadron
620 Squadron
97 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Battle
bombing
Defiant
forced landing
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Halifax Mk 7
Harrow
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Aqir
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Dishforth
RAF Fairford
RAF Hemswell
RAF Lyneham
Stirling
training
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Scenes on the ground
Strip of four slides
Description
An account of the resource
Two versions of the same strip (b/w and colour) with enlargements of all slides.
Slide 1 - captioned 'Easton Lodge 1945 October'. Large three story house covered in ivy with bay windows and tower and turret at right end. In front ornamental trees.
Slide 2 - captioned 'Hunting lodge, used to brew-up by ground staff at close by dispergace'. Small hut with p=steep pitched roof surrounded by trees.
Slide 3 - captioned 'visiting old station 9 years later, army trucks now fill bunkways'. View over part of an airfield with signal square in the foreground and runway in the distance.
Slide 4 - captioned 'Noel Chaffey sporting first seen badge of 620 Squadron on main Great Dunmore runway'. A man standing in the middle of a runway wearing a blazer with a squadron badge.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two strips of four slides and four enlargements (2 b/w and 2 colour)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSladdenD16010001, PSladdenD16020001, PSladdenD16040001, PSladdenD16040002, PSladdenD16040003, PSladdenD16040004
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Bishop's Stortford
England--Herefordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Scenes on the ground
Strip of four slides
Description
An account of the resource
Two versions of the same strip (b/w and colour) with enlargements of all slides.
Slide 1 - captioned 'USAF at Great Dunmow shows Mitchells + Marauders on station with bomb dump'. In the foreground bombs piled in rows on top of one another. In the middle distance further bomb rows and in the distance four twin engine bombers with D-Day stripes on wings. There is a fuel bowser behind one aircraft.
Slide 2 - captioned 'Stirling of 620 Squadron D4 "N" NAN (sorry about the short nose)'. View of port side of a Stirling parked on hardstanding. In the background another aircraft.
Slide 3 - captioned 'Old gateway to front lawn of Easton Lodge taken after the big house pulled down'. Wrought iron gate with private sign with trees either side and a grass field beyond the gate.
Slide 4 - captioned 'deRome crew: N Chaffey, (w/op), B Crocker (N), D deRome (P), (back row) P Griffin (r/c), R Pearman (f/e), B Garwood (b/a)'. Six men sitting and standing in two rows. All are wearing tunic with brevet and side caps aprt from navigator centre of front row who wears a peaked cap.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two strips of four slides and four enlargements (2 b/w and 2 colour)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSladdenD16010003, PSladdenD16020003, PSladdenD16040009, PSladdenD16040010, PSladdenD16040011, PSladdenD16040012
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Bishop's Stortford
England--Herefordshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-25
B-26
bomb aimer
flight engineer
navigator
pilot
Stirling
wireless operator
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Scenes on the ground
Strip of four slides
Description
An account of the resource
Two versions of the same strip with enlargements of all slides. <br />Slide 1 - captioned 'Diverted fortress on perimeter at GD "Easton Lodge" seen in background'. Head on view of a B-17 parked on hardstanding. There are four men under the starboard wing and another under the port outer engine. House visible under the starboard wing. <br />Slide 2 - captioned 'Paras ready to board Stirling or Whitley'. Blurred image of eight men in various dress by the rear door of an aircraft. <br />Slide 3 - captioned 'Although tied down with wire and stone weights it was safe amongst the Horsa gliders'. Front quarter view of a Spitfire parked and wired down on grass with Horsa gliders in the background. <br />Slide 4 - captioned 'Nice GO of Paul Deacon crew and ground crew GD 620 Squadron'. Six airmen standing in rear with four squatting down in front. Some aircrew have parachute harness and are wearing battledress, some groundcrew in overalls. In the background undercarriage of a bomber. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two strips of four slides and four b/w enlargements
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSladdenD16010007, PSladdenD16020007, PSladdenD16040025, PSladdenD16040026, PSladdenD16040027, PSladdenD16040028
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Bishop's Stortford
England--Herefordshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
B-17
ground crew
ground personnel
Horsa
Spitfire
Stirling
Whitley
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Scenes on the ground and towed Horsa
Strip of four slides
Description
An account of the resource
Two versions of the same strip (b/w and colour) with enlargements of all slides.
Slide 1 - captioned 'Everyone on station (not working) appears in this group 189 flying crews of 620 Squadron, ready for D-Day'. A very large group of airman sitting and standing in four rows in front to a Stirling with D-Day stripes on wings.
Slide 2 - captioned 'Taken on Kings steps - Easton Lodge amidst ruin before Brian arrived'. A man wearing white shirt and tie standing on steps leading to of a large house.
Slide 3 - 't Gardermoen-Norway flying paras as occupational force and reclaimed one of our guns 134'. Six men all wearing battledress. Two on left are flight sergeants. Four on right all have aircrew brevet and one, three from right is a pilot. They are all looking at a machine gun being held by three on the right.
Slide 4 - captioned 'DeRome rows Turvey and Stanley to D-Day Jimmy Marsun and crew - they didn't make it'. Air-air view of a towed Horsa glider.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two strips of four slides and three b/w and one colour enlargements
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSladdenD16010005, PSladdenD16020005, PSladdenD16040017, PSladdenD16040018, PSladdenD16040019, PSladdenD16040020
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Norway
Norway--Gardermoen
Great Britain
England--Essex
England--Bishop's Stortford
England--Herefordshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
620 Squadron
Horsa
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1519/30416/MSladdenD25115087-160623-24.1.pdf
c900e3f7c2a21d2dae6772ebc5799966
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Stirling QS-Y of No 620 Squadron on D-Day
by Noel Chaffey
RAF Fairford opened on 18 January 1944 and the station entered 38 Group Transport Command on 2 March 1944. Short Stirling IVs of No 620 Squadron arrived from RAF Leicester East in mid-March 1944 and were joined by No 190 Squadron, similarly equipped, later in March. A large collection of Airspeed Horsa gliders then followed and cross-country glider tows mingled with ever more extensive exercises. Both squadrons of Stirlings continued to operate night sorties for SOE, taking off generally from RAF Tarrant Rushton, Nr Blandford in Dorset.
On 17 April 1944 Horsa LJ263 was destroyed when it crashed into Fairford's control tower and killed its pilot. Another training accident involved two Stirlings releasing gliders during Exercise Exeter. Near Fairford they collided over Kempsford and both crews were killed.
On 5 June 1944 the first of 45 Stirlings began to roll shortly before midnight. Aboard were 887 paratroops of the 6th Airborne Division whose task in Operation Tonga was to secure the Orne Bridge and an area east of that river. Three Stirlings of No 620 Squadron failed to return and when the returned Stirlings were inspected, 27 of them were found to be unserviceable. By 1800hr on 6 June 1944, 25 had been made ready for Operation “Mallard,” the landing in Normandy of the 6th Air Landing Brigade in gliders.
This is my recollection, as an RAAF Wireless Operator of Stirling IV, LJ/592, of No 620 Squadron – from among thousands of aircrew who took part in the D-Day operations. Even the greatest optimist did not 'fancy our chances of returning to RAF Fairford' on that great occasion, let alone of still being alive 50 years on !
For sometime prior to 6 June, we realised something big was on, for, on recent exercises of glider towing along southern sections we observed the military and naval build-up of equipment which blocked fields, roads, lanes and byways – and 'choked' harbours. Then, for the second time, the camp was closed to all, except the beer trucks. No letters were allowed to be posted [inserted] but censored by officers [/inserted] and no telephone calls could be made or received. Ground crews were on a 24hr duty to comply with a 'maximum effort'. Everything and everybody who could fly was tasked to do so.
On 4 June the AOC-in-C Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh Mallory visited RAF Fairford to boost the efforts of the RAF contingent, together with the Parachute Regiments then stationed with us. The wireless operators from both Nos 190 and 620 Squadrons were ordered to go to the radio section and complete exercises on the ground transmitters. This was undertaken as though we were flying – so that the airwaves would be full of signals, although no actual aircraft were airborne. This we did for three consecutive days with the intention of confusing enemy listening stations across the Channel.
I cannot praise too highly the efforts of our ground crew – we depended very much on them and not once did they let us down. Many were not known to us, but fortunately some are still in contact. Only last June, when No 620 Squadron had its 50th anniversary reunion, did I learn who had actually painted the White Rose on 'Y' Yorkshire Rose II. This emblem was carried through over 34 operations without a scratch – a wonderful example of the Short Stirling bomber and those four Bristol Hercules sleeve-valve radial engines never missed a single beat during our operations.
The beginning of Operation “Mallard” started with extra briefings and being driven out to the line-up of aircraft and gliders. Many of the service personnel on the base, who could be excused duty were lining the runway to give us a wave and 'thumbs-up'.
Our take-off time was 1800hr – remembering we were then on double British Summer Time. The weather was still overcast and there were strong winds. We had no trouble in seeing the Horsa glider which quickly became airborne, but the Stirling needed the whole runway to get off and only just
[page break]
cleared the hedge. Although the Stirling was renowned to swing on take-off, I can never remember it happening to us. The special strength of Derek, our pilot, was always welcome and much appreciated.
Safely airborne we climbed to gain our position in the streams of similar aircraft and gliders from both Fairford and neighbouring airfields. We crossed the coast at Bournemouth and, on a special signal, turned onto our final leg for the Normandy coast. Our glider pilots – Staff Sergeant Turvey and Sgt Stanley were in the 'high tow' position. They were experiencing a roughish ride because of the turbulent air, not only from the weather but from the many four engined bombers in the stream ahead. These were at different heights and the mixing slip streams caused considerable difficulties. We were flying over what can best be described as a carpet, a patterned carped, of grey-blue with dark boats trailing white wakes. Air sea rescue launches were making diagonal patterns across the convoys.
We must have looked an impressive sight from sea level with the continuous flow of the huge Stirlings – all black on the underside interrupted by the newly painted triple white bands on the fuselage and wings, the invasion markings. The gliders had also been painted with the white stripes.
We were coming up to the French coastline, which we could barely see. Word came from our glider, via a cable plaited into the towrope, requesting permission to descend into the 'low tow' position. This was to be the best positioning for the release over the Dropping Zone (DZ). As we were soon to be near the DZ our pilot retrimmed the Stirling and gave permission for the Horsa to change position. Just then a strong gust of air swung us aside and we heard a loud bang. We shot forward and upwards with the engines screaming – the tow rope had broken.
Our Horsa had broken the rope when he came down through our slipstream, together with the down-draught of turbulent air. Having broken loose he was committed to head for the sea, about one mile off the French coast.
George Neal, another No 620 Sqn pilot two aircraft behind us noted our predicament and warned his crew to keep a sharp lookout. Basil Crocker, our navigator, quickly passed me our position and I broke radio silence to alert the air-sea rescue service. Our [inserted] flight engineer Frank [/inserted] then got the Stirling's rubber raft ready to throw out when we flew over the ditched glider.
Still floating on the rough sea we could observe five soldiers on the wing of the Horsa as we continued to circle overhead. Above us the constant stream of aircraft and gliders continued to their destination near Caen. After glider release we were to fly to their supply dropping zone, and then out as quickly as possible en route to base.
By this time, the air sea rescue launches had arrived and the five were in the life raft. But the glider began to sink and quickly went under. We still had our supplies to drop so we climbed back up to a lower position in the oncoming stream – this time mostly Dakotas towing Waco Hadrian gliders. We also observed increasing activity of enemy AA fire and could not help wondering why so many of the smaller aircraft were being hit and damaged – whilst we, in the larger four-engined bombers, at a lower altitude were just flying through the enemy fire.
The DZ was clearly visible and our bomb aimer gave us a slight alteration to course, straight in over the field. With a quick trip of the switch the 24 containers were released. With a lower weight the Stirling had increased burst of speed and we quickly headed back to the coast. After returning over the Channel, Bognor Regis was our allotted crossing point and then direct home to Fairford.
When we arrived at base we were 'stacked' up for a considerable time whilst wounded and damaged aircraft had preference for landing. By the time it was our turn to land, we had been airborne for 4 1/2 hours.
On landing we quickly inspected the Stirling to ascertain any damage – we had not sustained a single scratch ! Into the trucks back to SHQ as our
[page break]
dispersal was the furthest away from all the buildings. There was a special de-briefing that day. No enemy aircraft had been sighted – nor had we seen any Allied fighter aircraft. We gave details of our gliders plunge and Derek went to the office to ascertain the fate of its crew. We soon learnt that the five army lads were back in Portsmouth, but with regret heard that both the pilot and co-pilot had been killed on impact with the water.
After our meal we returned to our hut, only to discover that two Stirling crews had not returned. The MPs were already packing up their belongings. This was a scene repeated in many huts, on many squadrons that had taken part in the D-Day Overlord operation. This was the price that had to be for that success.
So ended our involvement in D-Day.
Crew of 'Yorkshire Rose':-
Pilot – [inserted] Flt Sgt [/inserted] Derek de Rome RAAF
Navigator - [inserted] P/O [/inserted] Basil Crocker RAF
Bomb Aimer/Second Pilot - [inserted] Flt Sgt [/inserted] Brian Garwood RAF
Flight Engineer - [inserted] Flt Sgt [/inserted] Frank Pearman RAF
Rear Gunner - [inserted] Flt Sgt [/inserted] Pete Griffin RAF
Wireless Operator - [inserted] Flt Sgt [/inserted] Noel Chaffey RAAF
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Stirling QS-Y of No 620 Squadron on -Day
Description
An account of the resource
Describes opening of RAF Fairford as part of 38 Group and arrival of Stirlings of 620 and 190 Squadons. Mentions training accident of Horsa glider. Goes on to describe 620 Squadrons operations paratrooper drops on D-Day and events leading up to the day. Praises groundcrew and gives detailed account of operation including the parting of their Horsa tow which had then to land in the sea. List his crew. Author was RAF wireless operator.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
N Chaffey
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MSladdenD25115087-160623-24
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
France
France--Normandy
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-18
1944-04-17
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jan Waller
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
620 Squadron
C-47
Horsa
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Fairford
Stirling